
The former Riverfront Market Place on Water Avenue is up for sale. I happened by the place next to Lafayette Park just as the For Sale banner was hung.
This building once housed a unique antique mall, and long ago (late 19th Century), its second floor housed the New York Life Insurance office of General Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston was one of five Confederate generals who lived in Selma after the War Between the States, and he also served as president of the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad. When a reporter from the Cincinnati (Ohio) Commercial newspaper came to town to write a post-war report, he noted that Johnston was "a quiet, easygoing old merchant."