State's last coal mine shuts; Centralia hit hard.

Byline: Hal Bernton

Dec. 1--CENTRALIA -- Ted Pilz lost his job as a mechanic this week when Washington's only coal mine shut down. So on Wednesday he headed there for one last task. He had to pick up his tools. During his 11 years on the job, Pilz had simply flashed his identification and cruised through the main gate on the way to the mine. This time, he had security escorts who trailed his every move. "They used to trust me enough to work on a $1 million piece of equipment," Pilz said. "I felt like I was a criminal." It was the uneasy end of an era here in the state's coal country since the Canadian owner, TransAlta, gave up on its troubled strip mine. The announcement meant the abrupt end of more than 550 union jobs, paying an average of more than $55,000 a year. They were some of the best blue-collar jobs in Southwest Washington, a bright spot in a lackluster Lewis County economy. The news broke in a week that would have otherwise been dominated by coffee-shop talk about the Centralia High School football team's first trip to the state…