industry retail founded 1905 headquarters san bernardino california products clothing footwear bedding furniture jewelry beauty products handbags and housewares website http www.gottschalks.com the harris company was a retail corporation based in san bernardino california that operated a chain of department stores named harris all in southern california . philip arthur and herman harris started the company with a small dry goods store in 1905 and the company eventually grew to nine large department stores with stores in san bernardino riverside and kern counties . 1 the chain was acquired by fresno california based gottschalks in 1998 . 2 after the acquisition some of the stores continued to operate under the name harris gottschalks . in january 2009 gottschalks filed for bankruptcy and on march 31 announced they were liquidating all stores . all of the original harris stores that were still operating were finally closed in july 2009 . contents 1 history 2 holiday seasons 3 buildings 4 see also 5 references history edit harris company building san bernardino the harris company first opened in 1905 . the flagship store was rebuilt at the corner of third street and e street in 1927 . the company made its first big expansion when it built a large anchor store at the new riverside plaza shopping center in 1957 the first large non downtown shopping destination in the region . expansion continued during the 1960s and 70s and the company was able to hold its own against competitors such as the los angeles based the broadway and robinson s chain stores by concentrating on the tastes and needs of local customers and by building a reputation for offering high quality merchandise . in 1981 spanish retailer el corte ingl s s.a. acquired the harris company and its nine stores which included bakersfield hemet indio moreno valley palmdale redlands riverside san bernardino and victorville . in 1997 the harris company invested 27 million to update its nine store chain . the harris company was acquired by gottschalks in 1998 and the stores were initially renamed harris gottschalks . most of the original harris stores eventually dropped the name harris except the indio and bakersfield locations which continued to operate under the harris gottschalks name . the original store in downtown san bernardino was closed on january 31 1999 . on january 14 2009 gottschalks filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy . 3 in march 2009 gottschalks announced that it had lined up a group of bidders to liquidate the chain if a buyer was not found by march 30 . 4 on march 31 gottschalks announced it would liquidate its remaining stores 5 and on july 12 2009 all of the gottschalks stores were closed . holiday seasons edit the original harris company store in downtown san bernardino and adjacent to carousel mall is still remembered today for its magnificent christmas and easter promotional displays . the family likewise provided lavish holiday decor for its riverside store and later others including creative automated window displays which became a local tradition for shoppers . this continued until 1998 long after most other stores cut back on lavish displays . buildings edit located on e street in downtown san bernardino the original harris company building remained vacant as of may 2016 . the largest location in the former harris chain was the 204 000 square foot 19 000 m2 location at the riverside plaza in riverside california . this store was also the largest store in the gottschalks chain . the store was purchased by clothing retailer forever 21 which opened a new large format store at the site in august 2009 . 6 see also edit gottschalks references edit rodriquez aimee l. richard a. hanks and robin s. hanks . images of america ; the harris company arcadia publishing 2008 . isbn 978 0 7385 5901 8 . form 8 k gottschalks inc. securities and exchange commission washington d.c. 1998 . dorfman brad 14 january 2009 . retailers gottschalks and goody s file for bankruptcy . reuters . thomson reuters . retrieved 14 january 2009 . gottschalks may shut down gottschalks makes deal with liquidation bidder forever 21 opening new inland stores the press enterprise august 13 2009 . retrieved october 18 2009 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title harris company & oldid 718685529 categories san bernardino californiadefunct department stores of the united statescompanies based in san bernardino county californiaretail companies established in 1905retail companies disestablished in 1998economy of riverside california navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 5 may 2016 at 00 40 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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