Raymond Bowser went to work at PPG Industries Inc.'s Creighton plant when he was 18. Fifty-five years later, he still shows up five days a week to turn out glass used in automobile windshields.

At 73, Mr. Bowser figures he's had his hands in just about every job at the plant -- including many tasks that now are automated.

He's also watched employment shrivel from more than 5,000 when he reported to his first shift in 1952, to about 230 today. So he wasn't terribly surprised when PPG announced it was unloading its auto glass division, including the Creighton plant, to focus instead on growth businesses such as coatings and optical products, including Transitions lens eye wear.

Yet news of the sale didn't push him any closer to retirement.

"I don't know how things will work out" under new ownership, said Mr. Bowser who lives in Sarver. He has the most seniority among the unionized work force at the Creighton plant. "I'm the type of person who's got to be kept busy. I'd rather work away than rust away."

Mr. Bowser and other employees -- as well as residents of the community where the plant has operated for more than a century -- don't have many details about its future. They do know that it is among the assets PPG plans to sell by the end of the year to Platinum Equity, a private investment firm based in Beverly Hills, Calif., in a deal valued at $500 million. The auto glass division includes nine manufacturing plants and nine satellite assembly plants that make windshields, sunroofs and windows for cars and trucks. The deal also includes PPG facilities that repair auto glass and handle insurance claims.

PPG and Platinum Equity declined to discuss the sale. "We're negotiating the final details of the transaction, and we expect to close by the end of the year," said Jack Maurer, PPG spokesman.

Other plants in the region that are part of the transaction are in Tipton, Blair County, and Meadville, Crawford County.

But none can trace its history as far back as the Creighton plant, a landmark in the Allegheny Valley and the oldest facility among PPG's operations, which now stretch around the globe. The corporation, which last year generated $11 billion in sales, got its start in 1883 when Captain John Ford, who had failed in a previous business, partnered with a wealthy financier, John Pitcairn, to set up a glassmaking shop along the Allegheny River, about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. They picked the site because of its close access to coal, natural gas and river sand. As they built and acquired other facilities, the plant became known as Works No. 1, a name some employees and locals still use to identify it.

Pittsburgh Plate Glass, as the company was known then, quickly became recognized as the first successful flat glass producer in the United States and its glass was sold for commercial applications, including storefronts, display cases and mirrors. It thrived in the 1920s as automakers demanded windows and windshields for the sedans that replaced open touring cars; and again in the post-World War II years as the country underwent a construction and housing boom.

In subsequent years, though, the labor intensive work that included extensive grinding and polishing of glass was replaced by automated production processes, and by 1968 the Creighton plant was no longer making glass -- just fabricating it.

"It's had tremendous impact and historical significance," said Tony Taliani, president of the board of commissioners of East Deer, which includes Creighton. "It was one of the largest employers in the Allegheny Valley in the 1950s when it had 5,500 workers. There are just a few hundred people working there today, but it's still a big part of the community. It provides good, quality jobs."

PPG is the largest employer and largest tax generator in East Deer. It paid nearly $80,000 in school and municipal taxes this year.

Residents like Mr. Taliani have close ties to the plant even if they never worked there.

"My grandfather, several uncles and cousins worked there, and one of my cousins is still there. My grandfather retired at age 70, stayed home for three days, and went back to the plant and stayed until age 75. We're hopeful and optimistic the operation will continue in East Deer."

Karla Grant, president of the United Steelworkers Local 12-G that represents 220 workers at the plant, said the facility operated three shifts a day, five days a week with some overtime shifts on weekends depending on demand.

The union met with company representatives as recently as last week to obtain details of the pending sale. Workers have been told the new owners would uphold the union's contract through its expiration in March 2009, but other information about pensions and health care for workers and retirees is "sketchy," she said.

"We don't know much about Platinum Equity. We don't know how they do business. PPG has been very closed-mouthed. It's a difficult one that you don't get much sleep on."

Platinum, launched in 1995, has 21 companies in its portfolio, including businesses it purchased from General Electric, Motorola, Lucent Technologies, AT&T and IBM. It ranked 22nd on Forbes magazine's 2006 list of largest private companies and describes its strategy as "managed entrepreneurship."

"After the strategy is worked out with an acquired company and the business plans are in place, Platinum Equity empowers companies to manage the day-to-day operations," the company said on its corporate Web site.

Ms. Grant, of Plum, will mark 30 years with PPG next year -- all of them working at the Creighton plant. Her father worked there briefly before joining the police force in New Kensington, and an uncle and a cousin retired from the plant.

"This plant provided employment for a lot of people for a long time, and there are a lot of retirees around. It was a good company to work for back in the day. We are people who grew up in glass. Coatings and resins were offshoots for PPG. Glass gave them the capital to grow."

While they wait for news about their fate, the workers remain upbeat, Ms. Grant said.

"We have a positive attitude. We have to come to work, and we'll do what we can do."