From the street now, it's just an immense anonymous box of concrete.

If you look closely, you can see the water-stain ghost of "Harris' " scripted across the south face of the building. And if you actually walk into the courtyard on the north side of the building, the bronze plaques saying "The Harris Co." are still set in the marble columns on either side of what originally was the store's main entrance.

But the red signs that marked the face and the cross-hatched square section that rose above the roof level have been removed. Unless you knew the department store from days past, you would not give it a second look.

It's merely a vacant shell now.

But for many, it remains a palace of memories.

Memories of a place to find the latest fashions. A place to expect and receive the kind of personal service that went the way of the 35-cent gallon of gas.

The three Harris brothers opened their original store in what was known as the Armory building -- long since burned down -- downtown on Third Street in 1905. The store, 20 feet wide by 100 feet deep, wasn't exactly spacious. Three employees took care of the customers.

But the Harris' attention to personal service paid off. Within two years, the brothers moved their business to a larger building. And by the mid-1920s, they began construction of the building that now stands on E Street. It opened amid great fanfare on Nov. 6, 1927.

The original north and east faces of the building still stand. The rest was remodeled when Carousel Mall -- then Central City Mall -- was constructed. The building's ornate Spanish Renaissance and Moorish designs are played out in the cast art stone sections of scroll work and the mosaic tiles.

Marble from Rome and Tennessee was used in the flooring and the columns at the entrance. The front doors were ornamented with hand-hammered copper.

In 1947, when escalators were first put in the store, a local newspaper story said it was the first "Motorstair" to be installed in the far western United States.

But what those who shopped there remember most is getting personal service and eating at the "tea room," the Cafe Madrid.

"Everybody used to go there for lunch," says Jacqueline Davis, 73. "The first time I took my oldest daughter out to eat was lunchtime at the Harris Co. She's 53 now. Each of my children came to the store for tea. So all three of them were raised, so to speak, in the Harris Co.

"It was a wonderful place to shop," Davis says. "The customer always came first. It was a focal point of San Bernardino."

Davis recalls the special effort the store made when the holiday season arrived.

"They did it all that night and the next morning it was completely turned into Christmas," she says. "It was just like magic. That was really special."

Millie McKim, who moved to Victorville during World War II and later to San Bernardino, says few department stores provided the kind of service Harris' did.

"Those salespeople, they just knew you by name," McKim says. "It was that personal touch that I think all of us miss in this day and age."

One of those salespeople was Aggie Teradian, 80, who worked at the store from 1964 to 1999.

"I was fashion director and youth activity director," when she first started, Teradian says. "I became their buyer for the designer room. I enjoyed every minute I was there. The Harrises treated everyone like family."

The Harris family sold controlling interest in the business in 1981 to El Corte Ingles, a Madrid-based company. It was in turn sold to Gottschalk's in 1998. The downtown store closed a little over a year ago.

"The signs came down (Thursday) and it's sad," Teradian says. "The whole town changed when Harris' changed. It was a wonderful store. It'll never be the same."

For some the change has been more painful than for others.

McKim says she can't even drive by the old store.

"I just can't bring myself to look at it," McKim says. "It's like the carcass of an old friend. I do hope they'll be able to find something that will make it alive and vital."

Mark Muckenfuss' column appears on Saturday. Call (909) 890-4463 or e-mail mmuckenfuss@pe.com.

Published 4/8/2000