Growing up in North Texas, the one thing that distinguished Sanger-Harris stores from every other department store were the unique artistic mosaics at the front entry to each store, some of which wrapped around three sides of the building. These mosaics could be 2 and 3 stories tall, depending on the design of the store. They added a sense of destination and elegance to the department store chain, which began in Dallas in the 1880s and persisted until being acquired by Foley's in 1988.
It is therefore not surprising that at the Harris family gravesite in Temple Emmanu-El Cemetery in Dallas the grave of the Sanger-Harris store founder's son Leon, the 2nd generation of Harris family members to run the business, and decided to differentiate his family's stores with mosaics, would bear a beautiful one.
The mosaic is made of small pieces of pastel glass. It shows a beautiful rural springtime scene of flowering purple Irises and pink Southern magnolias, overlooking an Alpine lake in a mountain valley at sunset or sunrise. (We know that those Texas plants won't grow in that Alpine climate, but it's art. Just enjoy it.) Inscribed beneath the mosaic are the words "plus qu'hier moins que demain" -- French for "More than Today, Less than tomorrow."
Beneath the mosaic, the vital dates for Leon A. Harris are inscribed in relief as follows:
Leon A. Harris
Jan 12 1886 Jan 12 1935
From the Sanger-Harris collection of papers in the Dallas History Collection at the Dallas Public Library: (
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"A. Harris and Co.
Adolph Harris, founder of A. Harris and Co., was born in Prussia on March 7, 1842. In 1859 Adolph left Prussia for Galveston, Texas. From Galveston he settled first in Limestone County and then traveled to Houston. In 1862 he established a dry goods store in Houston names Harris &Fox. In 1878 the firm was reorganized without Fox. Adolph Harris and his brother Jacob (Jake) called the company Harris brothers, occasionally known as A. Harris & Brother. After Jacob died in 1886, Adolph formed a partnership with the family of his wife, Fannie Grumbach Harris. Adolph had moved to Dallas in 1885. From 1886-1892 the firm operated as Fellman, Grumbach & Harris. The name was changed in 1891 to A. Harris and Co.
A. Harris and Co. was a well known, successful store. Unfortunately, Adolph died suddenly on February 14, 1912 of a heart attack while on a buying trip to New York City. He was survived by his wife, sons Arthur and Leon A., and daughters Marcell and Camille Harris Kramer. Camille's husband Arthur L. Kramer became president and Leon A. Harris vice president.
Arthur L. Kramer was born in December 17, 1880 in Kentucky. His family moved to Dallas when he was nine years old. Before assuming the presidency of A. Harris and Co., Kramer practiced law with the firm of Haxter and Kramer from 1902-1912. He remained at the head of A. Harris and Co. until his death in February 1950. Like Alex Sanger, Arthur Kramer and Leon Harris were involved in the social life of Dallas. They were active supporters of the Symphony, the Opera, and other Arts in Dallas. Their sons, Arthur L. Kramer Jr. and Leon A. Harris Jr., became the next generation of A. Harris and Co. management.
The Kramer and Harris families were more successful than the Sanger family in keeping family control of the company. The Harris and Kramer families continued to expand A. Harris and Company stores until February 1961 when the stock was taken over by Federated Department Stores. Federated, a holding company formed by the owners of Filene's ,Abraham & Strauss, and Bloomingdale's in 1929, began acquiring other stores. Basically headed by Fred Lazarus, Jr., Federated became one o the largest department store conglomerates. With the purchase of both Dallas stores, Federated merged them together creating Sanger-Harris."
Although it was Leon's son Leon A. Jr. who would commission house wrap-around murals for the Sanger-Harris stores of the 1950s-1980s, it's clead that his fagther influenced him in creating a signature cultured look for the family stores.
Sadly, the iconic murals that Sanger-Harris stores were famous for are vanishing: (
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Demolition set for old Sanger-Harris at Valley View — and, sadly, that will include the iconic murals
Dec 20, 2016
by Robert Wilonsky, City Columnist
I've been saying goodbye and good riddance to Valley View Center for exactly seven years — ever since December 2009, when I walked through the dead mall where I bought my first skateboard and Orange Julius and left with copies of Dianetics and the Bhagavad Gita that the Scientologists and Hare Krishnas were handing out at tables set up near what was left of the food court.
So you'll forgive me for not getting busted up about its sooner-than-later demise at this late date, especially after Saturday's sad stroll though the joint. Save for the upstairs multiplex and a few artists' galleries and off-off-off-brand storefronts, the mall's a morgue.
Although, here's a tip: If your last-minute Christmas gift list includes throwing stars, knockoff University of Texas tchotchkes that are a strange shade of Aggie Maroon and The Cartel jerseys with Pablo Escobar's name stitched on the back, I know just the mall.
The boy and I stopped by last weekend to take photos of and pay our last respects to the last thing Valley View has going for it, the only thing I cared about at this point: the brightly colored, abstract, geometrical murals decorating three sides of the old Sanger-Harris building that opened in July 1973. The massive mosaic tucked beneath the high arches, made of glass tiles and designed by local architect Brenda Stubel, is about to be smashed into pieces.
Breaks my heart, mostly because I'm a pathetic nostalgist. But there's no turning back now: City records show the demolition permit was pulled Thursday, which means the clock's running — Lloyd D. Nabors Demolition has 180 days to start wrecking until the permit expires. The property owner said Monday that "major demolition" will begin some time next month.
That will include the murals that bear Stubel's signature.
"We tried to everything we could," said Rich Enthoven, owner of the late, great department store affixed to the moldering corpse of a mall. "But the mural cannot be saved."
Stubel's murals weren't the first for Sanger's: A similar wraparound, though more muted, decorated the downtown location built in 1965, which Dallas Area Rapid Transit vanished when it took over the building in the early '90s. She designed the brightly colored murals — meant to be what Stubel calls "iconic, I-gotcha" landmarks visible to highway passers-by — at Sanger's Valley View, Six Flags Mall and Town East Mall. The one at Red Bird Mall came later but was a copy of her design at Valley View, her first commission.
She wasn't thrilled when I called her Friday night to tell her the permit had been pulled. But she wasn't exactly surprised, either.
Stubel and Suzanne Massey, SMU's head of community outreach, have been working to save the murals for months, since before the one at Six Flags Mall was razed in October. Massey said Monday she, too, considers them nothing less than "iconic."
But the two women were warned, not long ago, that "the cost to remove them was a significant dollar amount," Stubel said with a chuckle. "More than what it cost originally, which was about $300,000 or so. And at the time, we were amazed — and thankful — they had that desire to add that extra oomph to their retail architecture."
All I did was confirm the inevitable.
"I happen to the lucky one who was the architect and designer of the murals, and that was a wonderful part of my early career," she said. "It is a significant loss, at least in my memory."
The city — specifically, the Office of Cultural Affairs, keeper of Dallas' public art — actually looked into removing and preserving the murals. Whether it could be done. How long it would take. How much it might cost. Fine art conservator Michael van Enter was brought in last fall to take a long, hard look at the murals to see if they might be peeled off the old Sanger's (and, later, Macy's) exterior.
According to his report, which I received Friday, he first lightly tapped on the murals with a hammer — a "sounding" — to determine how much stucco had been used to affix the tiles to the exterior. It didn't sound good, van Enter wrote: "The stucco screed sounded unusually thick."
Then he drilled into the murals to see how deep they were and to what it had been attached. More bad news. Van Enter had hoped there would at least be a metal lath (a kind of screen) between the stucco and the building, so the murals could be carved out in sections. But, no. It's just stucco on concrete, which means it's too heavy to salvage — 28 pounds per square foot, he wrote, twice the normal amount for a job of this kind.
Even worse, the way the thing's up there makes it "extremely brittle," he wrote. And "because of the size, the panels they will have to be cut with wet diamond saws, which will damage many of the tiles and leave visible seams."
Oh — and there might be asbestos in there, too.
Van Enter said it would take about two years to remove the mural and cost between $4 million and $5 million. Schlepping the remains to the city's East Dallas "boneyard" for storage would run another $300,000 or so.
To which the city responded with a gasp and then a hard pass. That included the handful of City Council members who asked city staff to preserve them. (Jennifer Staubach Gates spoke for many of us in June when noting that she had "spent too much time there my teenage years.")
"The murals on the Sanger-Harris store are an iconic symbol for those of us growing up in the era of the enclosed mall," said Lee Kleinman, whose North Dallas district includes Valley View Center. "I hate to see them go."
Enthoven said they hope to salvage a few chunks once the demo's done, which Stubel can live with. But that's purely fingers-crossed at this point.
And, look, this sucks, especially for those of us who wasted our childhoods at Valley View. But at this point, I'm just thrilled they even tried to save the mural, because in this town they usually swing the wrecking ball when no one's paying attention and hope we won't notice the blank space. And, besides, it isn't all bad news.
The Sanger's is being adiosed to make way for a piece of the long-promised 20-acre park that's set to anchor the so-called Dallas Midtown development that Scott Beck has been talking about since April 2012. EF Properties has 20 acres along Montfort Drive and LBJ Freeway, four of which are under option by the city as a sort of park starter kit, which our neck of the northwest desperately needs, according to the Trust for Public Land.
Enthoven said Monday that if the city doesn't find the money to buy the land — and given the billion dollars that the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund's asking for, good luck with all that — there are still options. Among them, he said: "We are also working with the Midtown Park Foundation and private individuals and donors as possible buyers."
And Hillwood Urban said Monday it still plans on building an office tower on the site, while EF Properties is looking to plant a hotel and high-rise apartment tower on the property once the dust clears.
But, first, Sanger's and its murals have to go. And Stubel, who still lives nearby in northwest Dallas, gets that. She doesn't have to like it, but she gets it. Comes with the job, she said. Architects just know that one day, what they built will be destroyed and replaced by the next New Thing.
"You know it could be an eventuality," she said. "But, hopefully, after we're long gone." Another small laugh. "So we don't have to go through the pain of seeing it go away."
Well, the mural on Leon's grave won't be going anywhere.