West Main Street at the center of Old Louisville downtown is at the heart of the cultural district of Louisville featuring the second largest collection of cast-iron facades in the United States.
Over a century ago, cast iron made it possible to build beautiful decorative features that were too expensive to carve out of stone. The sidewalk bricks in front of the columns are placed sideways and flecked with iron to make the cast iron buildings easily identifiable. To doubly ascertain you carry along as you walk by a magnet which is most likely to stick to buildings whose facades are cast iron. Ironwood trees grow in front of cast iron buildings surrounded by replicas of authentic coal hole covers. A stand of three trees are planted together thus indicating that the building is masonry. Cast iron walking sticks and tree rings give hints as to the original uses of nearby buildings.






