Riding down the elevator to the 30,000 square foot basement that has been the Southern Music Company's home for the last 12 years, takes many a music lover's breath away. 

"My heart went like, 'Ooh!' Oh my God look at all this music!' I just went nuts," said Sandy Fedor, who's been a customer off and on for decades. "I grew up here and I took piano lessons here in the 60s and 50s."

Fedor and hundreds of other customers are taking that last walk through the thousands of volumes this week.

On Saturday, the store will close its doors for good, losing a long battle with online retailers.

"It's kind of a monument to the city or one of those things that you hate to see go down," said Cheryl Crews, who grew up in Austin yet still made many trips to the store at it's former location near the Pearl Brewery.

"Customers come in here and they say, 'Oh I've been shopping at Southern Music since I started music,' and some of these people are elderly, I mean 70 years old," added Danny Rodriguez, an employee for the last six years.

While the company plans to continue with the publishing side of its business, its vast catalog, including many pieces used by high schools at University Interscholastic League competitions, are expected to be sold to a prospective buyer.

But if those pieces aren't available locally, it may send many customers online, a place they often avoid because of Southern Music.

"There are some old-fashioned people like me who don't do the mp3 and I like to look at the real music itself," said Crews.

"You don't get to look at the music that much and you have to know what you're looking for and you have to know what's in the books," added Fedor.

"It's amazing to go through the stacks and be able to touch that music and look at it and even brand new stuff, it still smells like ink and paper," said Rodriguez. "I've been here six years and I still find myself about an hour a day going through the stacks and just picking up things."

The store stayed very busy a few weeks ago, with the Texas Music Educators Association's annual conference in town.

Although they didn't have a presence downtown, they were still swarmed by band directors from across the state, stopping in to say their goodbyes and buy what they could at 50% discounts.

"It's sad because it's a part of history," said Lyndee Bordini, who was visiting the store with her son. "I think as people go digital, I think music is going to be affected too as people go more and more to digital but there's nothing like picking up the piece and hanging onto it."

The store closes it's doors on Saturday.