ALCOA, Tenn (WVLT) -- Longtime workers and former retirees at Alcoa reflect back on an aluminum making operation that spans back nearly one hundred years that will soon end.

There have been a lot of people over the years that have passed through the south plant where the aluminum was made.

During it's hay day, thousands were employed by the plant.

During such times, social changes came with women working at the plant.

And all who worked there never forget what it was like.

"Hot! Hot and dirty. Oh boy, it was pretty rough for a while," says Clarence Baldwin.

Baldwin is retired from Alcoa after working many years in their south plant where aluminum is made.

In fact, he began before the second world war, and watched the operation grow to several thousand employees.

Baldwin says, "It's a pretty good size operation yes it was."

Brenda Lequire says, "It's very hot. It takes a very tough person to survive in the pot rooms."

Lequire worked for close to twenty years in the pot rooms of the south plant and even in the 70's and 80s she remembers staffing in all four pot rooms.

"There's a north end and a south end and they was all up and running during that time," says Lequire.

But Brenda Lequire faced additional challenges being one of the first women who worked in the south plant.

"I had them tell me that I need to go home and cook because I had a mans job who had a family to support," says Lequire.

But Lequire says she was a single mother who also had a family to support and didn't back down.

"I made the comment several times that I would be there until the pots turned to ice," says Lequire.

Brenda says things have gotten much better over the years in the south plant....a place which will soon stop making aluminum.

"As many years as those pot rooms have been up and running you would not think that it would shut down," says Lequire.

"I couldn't imagine them closing it plumb out, no," says Baldwin.

Brenda says her focus is now on the employees who will soon lose their jobs.

The plant is expected to cease making aluminum by the end of March.