The last of Lordstown Assembly's depleted workforce walked out of the GM plant early Wednesday afternoon, unsure whether they would ever enter again.

As the last Chevrolet Cruze rolled through the line Wednesday, workers put their tools down, picked up their personal belongings and left the building.

Some stayed for a vigil marking the final Cruze reaching the end of the line around 2:30 p.m. Some went to the union hall to commiserate with former coworkers. Some went home.

The plant will officially go idle on Friday. GM has no immediate plans to "retool" or reconfigure the plant for another vehicle. The company announced in November it would idle four factories as part of a shift toward SUVs and trucks, as well as investing in electric and autonomous vehicles. The Cruze will be discontinued in North America.

For the first time in over 100 years, GM won't be assembling automobiles in Ohio.

Just two years ago, the plant employed 4,500 workers. After two rounds of shift eliminations, the plant was down to roughly 1,700 hourly employees. A few hundred employees will remain at the plant, building service parts, through the end of March.

In-depth:Ohio tried to stop General Motors from leaving Lordstown. It didn't work.

Wednesday was a somber day in the Mahoning Valley, an area about 60 miles southeast of Cleveland that's endured several rounds of manufacturing job losses in recent decades. GM's November announcement came one week after the community started a grassroots campaign for adding jobs to the plant.

The 6.2 million square foot plant, in operation for 53 years, signified stability in the valley and the promise of good-paying blue collar jobs in a county where 48 percent of residents struggle to make ends meet. Some 400 workers have accepted job transfers to GM plants in other states.

"In this area, it’s the last good jobs – people who make a living wage," UAW Local 1112 President Dave Green told The Enquirer.

What's next?

GM is idling the plant, which means it will be maintained so that it can be put back into operation if the company decides to put a new vehicle there. That's the outcome Lordstown workers and officials are hoping for.

Lordstown has produced sedans, vans and compact cars including the fuel-efficient Cruze – why not a small SUV or electric vehicles? Retooling is expensive, but state tax credits or grants could help.

Ohio Sens. Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown said Wednesday they continue to urge GM to move production of electric vehicles into Lordstown Assembly.

"We've got to get GM to look at this differently," Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, said Wednesday morning on CNN. “It doesn’t mean they can’t put another product in there and give the worker the opportunity to prove themselves, which they will."

Meanwhile, GM plans to lay off another 100 Ohio workers this spring at its West Chester processing plant.

Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, reintroduced his "American Cars, American Jobs" bill to incentivize American auto sales. Buyers would get a $3,500 discount on American-made cars ($4,500 for hybrid or electric vehicles.) Car companies that move production overseas would lose a tax break, and that revenue would pay for the buyer discounts.

“They don’t say no – they just don’t say yes to something,” Brown told reporters Wednesday. “And if they say no, we’ll look for someone else to come in and buy it.”

Brown, a possible 2020 challenger to Republican President Donald Trump, was again critical of the president’s response to the Lordstown closure.

During a 2017 rally in the region, Trump told attendees not to sell their houses or move, that manufacturing jobs would be returning to the valley – an area that helped him win Ohio in 2016 and could be important in 2020. Trump threatened retaliation against GM soon after the November announcement.

In recent weeks, the president has claimed automakers are bringing jobs back to Ohio and other states. Some car companies have announced expansion plans in the U.S., but there hasn’t been an influx of auto jobs in the Buckeye State or elsewhere.

Gov. Mike DeWine met with Trump last week and said the president is concerned about the Lordstown plant shutting down.

Why can't a new company take over the plant?

DeWine met with GM CEO Mary Barra in January. Afterward, he said GM gave no indication it would be putting a new line in the plant. DeWine said he has the impression GM is talking to other manufacturers about moving into the facility.

That can't happen as long as GM has the plant in "unallocated" status.

A GM spokeswoman said the plant will remain "safe and secure." An undisclosed number of employees will maintain the facility going forward.

Long term plans for the facility will be determined after UAW-GM contract negotiations later this year.

Until then, Green and his Mahoning County neighbors will remain vigilant.

"We've spent decades helping others in the area and now that we're in a time of need, we have that support flow back in our direction," Green said.

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