St. Louis ? Nobody knows for sure, but it may have been while Irvin Alper was tied up by robbers using shoestrings from his wholesale warehouse that the St. Louis businessman concocted a plan to improve security.

Soon after, he began encouraging police officers to come to him to replenish their soles — which resulted in a lot of police and twice that many soles.

Over three decades, Alper became a favorite salesman to officers who would travel from Chesterfield and Cahokia and points beyond to enjoy his sense of humor and cheap prices on regulation black oxfords.

There was never any real advertising. There was no noticeable sign for Alpers’ Jobbing Co. It took a detective’s skill just to find the dusty five-story warehouse north of downtown. But there came a steady parade of blue and brown uniforms, an annual pilgrimage for many to replenish their shoe leather.

That parade will soon end. Alper died last month, at age 84, and his family plans to sell off the stock.

“He took good care of coppers,” said St. Louis police Sgt. Danny Slay. “He was always happy to be there and gave us great service. It’s a real loss.”

The entrance is hidden in an alley near railroad tracks. Customers park in a gravel lot and ring a bell at the large steel door on the side.

“You’d have to know someone who’d been there, or you’d never find it,” said Ballwin Officer Dave Ovca.

Inside, the musty old place is packed with boxes of shiny shoes. They’re everywhere, kept in no apparent order, in some spots towering to the ceiling. It goes on like that, floor after floor. The higher the floor, the older the shoes.

Michael Alper began the wholesale business just after World War II, selling Army surplus. Irvin Alper and his brother, Arnold, inherited the business from their father in the 1960s and focused on a logical extension to military gear: uniform footwear for police, firefighters and guards.

It was sometime along the way that robbers tied up Irvin Alper and his employees one day and took their wallets.

Enes Matthews, a Bi-State bus driver from St. Peters, Mo., tries on a pair of boots with the help of Irvin Alper's employee Steve Williams at Alpers' Jobbing Co. Matthews visited the store Oct. 27.

After that, in 1974, the Alper brothers moved from a rented space on Franklin Avenue to the warehouse on Cass. They began taking walk-ins from police.

“He liked to have cops coming into the building for protection,” said Irvin Alper’s nephew, Matt Alper.

Many loyal local customers bought their first pair of shoes as they enrolled in the academy. Slay was one of them, in 1977. Officers steered him to Alpers’ for a discount. But even that was tight on Slay’s $10,900 salary.

“Irv said, ‘Pay me when you can,’ and gave me a pair of shoes,” Slay recalled.

Irvin Alper would put on a pot of coffee and ask officers about their jobs.

“He always had a little gleam in his eye when we were around,” Slay said. “He liked us for who we were, not what we could do for him.”

Alper offered the shoes at less than half retail value but was known to be a little pushy about socks. “No matter what kind of shoes you bought, you had to buy a good pair of socks to go with them,” Ovca recalled.

Irvin Alper grew up in St. Louis and served in the military in World War II before joining the business.

Alper and his wife, Becky, had three children and six grandchildren.

Police officers say they regret not realizing he had died until it was too late to pay respects. Some said they would have arranged a police escort to the cemetery — all in glossy shoes, of course.

What merchandise does not sell soon will be turned over to Alper’s nephew Matt, in San Antonio. Police can buy from his Internet business, called www.copshoes.com. No coffee. No banter. No dust.

“Obviously,” said St. Louis police Lt. Joseph Beffa, “it won’t be the same.”