Moments after Independence Day fireworks exploded over Lady Bird Lake, revelers poured down South Congress Avenue past the American-Statesman building, many eager to continue their Saturday night festivities.

But inside the cavernous pressroom on Fourth of July, it was crunch time.

Pressroom operators raced against the clock to print more than 110,000 copies of Sunday’s newspaper, the biggest of the week. SUV-sized rolls of newsprint fed into the hulking metal machines that would print the day’s news, fold and eventually whisk away finished copies on a conveyor system hanging from the ceiling. As the clocked ticked, the rhythmic vibrations pulsated throughout the sprawling space.

When the night’s first test copies began to print, press workers furiously scanned the newspaper pages. Their trained eyes searched out the smallest imperfections, such as overly darkened columns or pages slightly askew. They hustled to make adjustments from a computerized control room.

Scan, scan, adjust. Each copy printed better than the last.

At 10:48 p.m., while holiday traffic snarled outside, the first good copy of Sunday’s front page rolled off the press.

“Final edition,” pressroom supervisor Joe Mireles said into his walkie talkie. “Let’s make it look good.”

It was the last American-Statesman front page printed in the newspaper’s Austin printing facility, and for these workers and the city, the night marked the end of an era.

For nearly 150 years, a version of the newspaper, which was founded in 1871 as the Democratic Statesman and changed names several times until it became the Austin American-Statesman in 1973, has been printed locally.

In April, the Statesman announced it would no longer print its own newspapers but outsource its printing operations to San Antonio and Houston as a cost-saving measure. Even with the change, the paper will continue seven-day-a-week print publication and delivery.

The shift will result in the layoffs of about 100 pressroom and packaging workers. The Statesman press and packaging workers, many of whom have been in the printing industry for generations, have developed family-like bonds over the decades as they have kept a unique art form alive.