LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A piece of Louisville’s past has reemerged downtown, revealing a relic from the city’s early retail days.

At the corner of Fifth and Market streets, crews working on a historic building recently uncovered a long-hidden sign reading “R.B. Grover and Company, Makers of Emerson Shoes.”

“When we uncovered it, it looked like a cast-iron engraving,” said investor Bill Frey. “The signs told you everything, not a cell phone that you were at the right place.”

The discovery offers a glimpse back to a time when downtown Louisville bustled with pedestrians, railroads, and horse-drawn carriages, and steamboats pulled up to the 4th Street Wharf.

A find more than a century old

Frey believes the Emerson Shoes sign may have been covered for more than 100 years.

“We’re very lucky,” h

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