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OGDEN • This week's auction of equipment and machinery that used to pump out Twinkies and Wonder Bread at a well-known Hostess factory in Ogden that closed in 2012 triggered nostalgia from former workers.
Machinery inside the old Ogden factory was auctioned off Wednesday, leaving many former workers to remember their time making sugary snacks for sale around the western U.S, The Standard-Examiner reported.
Former employee Eric Evans, who worked for Hostess for 40 years, traveled from the Salt Lake City area on Tuesday to visit the factory and look at the goods he used to work with before bidding began. "It's kind of an eerie feeling, you know, seeing it empty and everything," he said Tuesday.
The building has been unused since 2012, after Hostess Brands declared bankruptcy. New owners took over the Hostess name in 2013, but the Ogden facility wasn't reopened. The city of Ogden purchased the building last December for $2.1 million.
Evans now works for the Rocky Mountain Baking Co. He traveled to the Ogden factory not just to visit his old workplace, but to check out what machinery his new employer may want.
Other potential visitors also scoped out the goods, from dough mixers, ovens, creme-fillers, conveyers, ambient bread cooling systems and more.
"It's all reusable," said Jack Copher of Vancouver, Washington-based Harvest Food Solutions. "Some of it's been well-used."
Evans said seeing the equipment sold is a final chapter for him. His wife, Sheree Evans, worked at the Ogden facility as a business office manager and was one of the last workers to leave after it closed its doors in 2012.
"It's like a final closure, I guess, for me just to come in here and see it one more time," he said.