MIAMI (AP) — In urban archaeology, the backhoe is a time machine: Scrape away a mountain of asphalt, dirt and rock near the river in downtown Miami, and the city’s buried history, centuries of it, suddenly comes to light in a startling reveal.

Here are three smooth concrete steps leading down to a tiled floor, a remnant of industrialist Henry Flagler’s grand Royal Palm Hotel, which gave birth to modern Miami and its tourism industry. There are the brick bases of the columns that once held up the hotel’s famed veranda.