The pixelated billboard outside the Dome at America’s Center offered no acknowledgment of its previous tenant.

Two days after the Rams clinched their first Super Bowl berth since 2002, the building — which in its heyday housed “The Greatest Show on Turf” — offered no evidence of celebrating the achievement.

“Welcome to St. Louis,” the screen read, before pivoting to an advertisement for a Garth Brooks concert in March.

Three years after the Rams uprooted for Los Angeles, three years after Stan Kroenke became an epithet in this town, three years after a twister of hurt feelings and litigation was kicked up, the outbursts of rage have morphed into pangs of melancholy.

Former Rams fans harbor more emptiness than anger. They hide the hurt well. In order to find remnants of their fandom, you have to search a little deeper than the stadium situated a few blocks from the Mississippi River.

On a rainy Tuesday evening, inside a shopping center about 30 miles west of downtown, a man named Matt Meier led the way to a hidden stockpile inside the Rally House sporting goods store he manages in St. Peters, Mo.

Meier strode past displays for baseball’s Cardinals, hockey’s Blues, the Missouri Tigers and Kansas City Chiefs. He veered away from the sections for Missouri State and Saint Louis University.

Finally, he opened the door to a back-room warehouse overflowing with discounted “Millennium Blue and New Century Gold”-colored Rams gear.

“Believe it or not,” Meier said, “there are still some Rams fans here.”

Whitney Curtis for The Los Angeles Times There's plenty of St. Louis Rams merchandise for sale at Rally House in St. Peters, Mo. There's plenty of St. Louis Rams merchandise for sale at Rally House in St. Peters, Mo. (Whitney Curtis for The Los Angeles Times)

After the team left in January of 2016, Rally House decided to consolidate the Rams gear from its five stores into one location, across the hall from the men’s room. The stash stretches on hangers spread across one wall, with five separate racks nearby, a collection of T-shirts, polos and hoodies. There are fitted caps, snapbacks and dad hats. In boxes across the room is even more Rams-stamped ephemera: piggy banks, alarm clocks, golf balls, sandals, slippers, cell-phone cases and $17.99 thongs.

During the season, Meier estimated, the store receives a couple of customers a week in search of Rams apparel. There are also a few knowledgeable shoppers who make repeated visits. But there is far more interest these days in the cross-state Chiefs, whose merchandise is positioned in the front display window. When Kansas City lost to New England in the AFC championship game Jan. 20, a nightmare scenario unfolded for St. Louis, with bitter memories raised by both Super Bowl participants.

By that Sunday evening, when the Super Bowl matchup finally was set, “St. Louis was in a collective depression," said Bob Wallace, a former Rams executive who is now an attorney in the city. Wallace cited the Spygate allegations that dogged the Patriots after they beat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002.

"The Patriots were probably the city's least favorite team, prior to the Rams leaving,” Wallace said. “The Rams are now the least favorite team."

One night last week, former season-ticket holders Rick and Ronda Freedman gathered a collection of heirlooms on their kitchen table. There was a baseball cap given out to the original class of personal-seat license holders from 1995. There was a photograph of star cornerback Aeneas Williams visiting a school. There were a trio of tickets to playoff games from the 1999 season, when Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce formed a revolutionary offense.

The paraphernalia gather dust these days. Ronda joked that Rick wanted to torch it all, but she couldn’t go through with it.

“A lot of people in St. Louis just enjoy seeing the Rams lose, at this point,” Rick said. “Because they burned the city of St. Louis.”

Said Ronda: “It’s all the ownership. Nobody dislikes the players.”

Billy Hurst / Associated Press Rams fans attending the team's final game in St. Louis in 2015 clearly didn't support owner Stan Kroenke's decision to move the team to Los Angeles. Rams fans attending the team's final game in St. Louis in 2015 clearly didn't support owner Stan Kroenke's decision to move the team to Los Angeles. (Billy Hurst / Associated Press)

The Rams do not inspire simple antipathy here. Their former fans root for the kicking duo of Johnny Hekker and Greg Zuerlein. They admire the prowess of defensive tackle Aaron Donald and running back Todd Gurley. They feel jealousy about the partnership between coach Sean McVay and quarterback Jared Goff.

The majority of the anger is directed toward the management team of Kroenke and chief operating officer Kevin Demoff. Local members of the media accuse the pair of conspiring to leave without giving the city a fair chance to keep the team. They blame the NFL for facilitating the move. And they curse Kroenke for denigrating the market on his way out by saying it could not support pro football.

“In St. Louis history, sports or otherwise, the two most reviled people are Stan Kroenke and Kevin Demoff,” said Randy Karraker, who hosts the afternoon drive-time show on 101 ESPN. “They are met with disdain every time their name comes up.”

Kroenke could not be reached for a response. A representative for Kroenke Sports and Entertainment directed all questions to the Rams. A spokesperson for the team said the Rams would not comment.

Kroenke was instrumental in delivering the Rams to St. Louis in the first place. He bought a 40% stake in the team when Georgia Frontiere moved the Rams out of Los Angeles in 1995. In their fifth season in town, lightning struck. Warner went from grocery bagger to Super Bowl MVP. The team made the playoffs five times during a six-year stretch, and the Rams superseded the Cardinals as the city’s hottest ticket.

“The team was so incredibly popular,” said Tiffani Wilson Burris, who worked for the Rams for several years before becoming the executive director of the Isaac Bruce Foundation. “They were so beloved in this city. People loved them. It was everything.”

Williams played the final four seasons of his Hall of Fame defensive back career in St. Louis before becoming a pastor in a suburb outside the city. Fifteen years after he made his final tackle, he still receives reminders from members of the community. He said he will be greeted by “three generations of fans — grandfather, father and son,” who tell him stories about games inside the dome. “Fond memories,” he said, “that people will remember for the rest of their lives.”