Inside the Final Day at the Wonder Bread Factory in Queens

Workers at the Wonder Bread plant in Jamaica, Queens, said emotional goodbyes in the final hours of the factory's operation Thursday when, after 130 years, the outfit that manufactured products like Wonder Bread, Twinkies and Drake's Cakes shuttered its doors for the final time.

A lone hair-netted worker darted around the dormant dough making machines Thursday night and the factory floor was nearly silent. Outside in the parking lot, employees -- 175 of whom were laid off -- waxed nostalgic about their tenure.

Darren "Messiah" Rogers, 48, was employed in the shipping department for 18 years and said he's hurt the factory is closing. A widower with a 13-year-old daughter, Rogers said he considered his co-workers his family and isn’t ready to see the factory close.

“I enjoyed it. I came to know these people,” he said, wiping away a tear. “I came to know these people, and now we all got to go our separate ways. It's hard.”

He said he's not getting a retirement package, but a severance package. He has already started looking for a job, but was disappointed that a grocery store could only offer him $7.50 an hour. He’s going to keep looking.

The bread factory opened in the 1870s and began baking Wonder Bread in the 1920s. The Interstate Bakeries Corp., the parent company that produces Wonder Bread, and Hostess Twinkies, has said modernizing the plant is too costly. The Interstate Bakeries Corp. filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and many workers say they’ve been worried about their jobs ever since.

Another former employee, Kith Innis from Trinidad, sat in his minivan keeping warm, listening to jazz, as co-workers came up to reminisce with him. He worked in the shipping department for 20 years, but said he’s ready for a change.

“After 20 years of putting your life on hold. I’ve given enough, I’m going to go on my own now,” he said.

He’s going to try to teach steel pan music.

An engineering supervisor of 13 years, Jean, who would only give his first name, was even more sanguine.

“It’s been a great ride,” he said.

The Haitian-born father of two says the building was never designed to be a bakery, but they made it work for over 100 years.

“This was like that little engine that could run.”