BANGOR – A wholesale distribution center that has served small stores in northern Maine for nearly 50 years closed its doors Friday.

Reid’s Distribution Center, formerly known as Reid’s Confectionary, decided this week to shut down its wholesale business. Robert Nagle, Reid’s chairman and chief financial officer, on Thursday told employees at the company’s Dowd Street distribution center that the next day would be their last day of work with the firm, according to people close to the company.

Randy Lloyd, president of Reid’s, confirmed Friday that the wholesale side of the company was closing permanently at the end of the day. He said the company’s Cigaret Shopper retail stores would stay open.

According to the Cigaret Shopper Web site, there are 12 of the discount retail tobacco shops in Maine.

“We are closing the wholesale operation,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd declined comment about the short notice reportedly given to employees that the distribution center was closing down.

Reid’s, which has supplied independent grocers and convenience stores with tobacco, candy, food and convenience products, was founded in Houlton in 1946. It employed 45 people at its sole distribution center, according to a five-sentence written statement released Friday by the company.

Company officials did not disclose why the distribution center is closing.

Local resident Carl McFarland, a driver with Reid’s, said Friday that Nagle, Reid’s owner, simply decided to retire and get out of the business.

He said the announcement Thursday did not come as a complete surprise.

“I had an idea it was coming,” McFarland said as he stood in the parking lot outside the 55,000-square-foot distribution facility. ‘We’ve been hearing rumors and stuff like that.”

McFarland said that because he has a truck driver’s license, he is confident he’ll be able to find another delivery job, perhaps with a competing distributor.

“Some [employees] are upset,” McFarland said. “Some drivers are wondering what they are going to do.”

Reid’s has about five or six drivers that deliver merchandise to retail outlets, he said.

Bob Duran, owner of C&K Variety markets in Hermon and Levant and of Country Market in Hermon, said Friday that he has been told by Reid’s employees that Pine State Trading Co. will take over delivery to his stores and to Reid’s other customers.

Duran said he was sorry to learn of Reid’s closing.

“I had a very good business relationship with that company,” he said. “They are very good people.”