Apr. 4--WestPoint Home said today that it will close its plant in Elkin in June and cut 134 jobs.

The textile manufacturer, based in New York, expects to terminate plant employees between June 5 and June 19.

WestPoint, which makes bed and bath home fashions, will also close its blanket plant in Biddeford, Maine and another plant in Chipley, Fla.

Nancy Golden, a spokeswoman for the company, said that the closings are a direct result of the expiration of textile quotas in January 2005.

"There's the financial pressure to make our products more efficiently and less expensively, so consequently we've made the decision to close the facilities in favor of alternative production sites overseas," she said.

Unlike Mount Airy and Pilot Mountain, which have borne the brunt of textile-manufacturing job cuts in Surry County, the WestPoint plant closing is the first major layoff in Elkin since CMI Industries Inc. cut 100 jobs in February 1996, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

Counting the WestPoint layoffs, more than 2,800 textile jobs have been eliminated in Surry since January 2000, including at least 1,050 since May 2007.

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