By today's business standards, the Hardware Emporium is practically ancient. The store is almost 38 years old, and its building dates back to the 1940s.

By Loomis' standards, it's a relative newcomer. This Placer County town, population 6,250, has deep roots.

Across Taylor Road from the emporium, the relocated and refurbished train depot is almost 100 years old. Much of the rest of downtown Loomis was rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1915. Loomis Main Drug, with its classic 11-seat soda fountain, does business in a building that survived the fire.

This is why, in a town perched between historic and chic, the expected closing of the Hardware Emporium on Dec. 14 will hurt.

"It's coming down to the wire, eh? Sure sad for us to see you go," Ron Jones said as he stopped by the store the other day.

Jones, a teacher at Del Oro High School since 1966 and a customer since the store opened in March 1971, said the emporium, its owners and employees are "friends and neighbors … they are part of the community."

"Half the time I come in, I don't know what I want," he said. "I tell them the problem, and they figure out what I need."

The emporium is owned by Cynthia and Dawn Forcier. But, really, it still is Jerry's store.

That would be Jerry Forcier, husband of Cynthia and dad of Dawn, who died in 1997. He started the store, procured its array of antique tools and established its customer-friendly tone.

"Dad taught us well, and we're still trying to run it like he wanted," Dawn Forcier said.

"He was a knowledgeable old cuss," customer Mike Baradine said with a laugh.

Baradine, a retired railroad man and homebuilder, recalls he came to the store for the first time in 1973.

"I was building my first house. … Jerry helped me figure out how to build the shower manifolds and the drain," he said. "We're gonna miss this place."

Dawn Forcier, now 53, and her brothers, Michel and Steven, started working at the store before it opened.

"I got the job of painting and got paid 25 cents an hour," she said.

She has been there on and off ever since.

"Everybody is really sad that we are closing," she said, "but they feel better when they find out it's by our choice."

Last week, on a watercolor-perfect day in the Sierra Nevada foothills, Cynthia Forcier waited on customers and talked about the past and future.

She said business is down about half – "the economy is hurting everybody" – but that is not why they are closing.

And despite talk on the street, she said, the prospect of big-box stores, such as Home Depot, coming to the Loomis-Rocklin area had nothing to do with the decision.

"I'm ready to retire," she said. "Thirty-eight years is long enough, and Dawn doesn't want to do it alone.

"I will miss a lot of the people, but it will be nice to have a lot of spare time."

The store itself remains a marvel.

Stock has dwindled since the closing date was set, but customers can still find everything from American flags to waterbed conditioner. And, of course, tools.

The real treasures, though, hang from the ceiling and on the walls – Jerry's collection of antique tools, which once numbered into five digits.

Some have been sold – most are available at www.patented-antiques.com – but those left in the store are remarkable: wooden shovels and wood-toothed rakes, scythes and ferocious-looking adzes, mallets and hammers, planes and mauls.

There's also a cooper's lid press, a baffling wood-and-metal contraption that was used to put tops on barrels, Cynthia Forcier said. It was built in 1875 at the Marysville Cooperage.

"Dad always said that the best tool he had was the one that he hadn't found yet," Dawn Forcier said.

Bob Hansen, the last president of the Loomis Fruit Growers, said the store's closure will be a great loss.

"From the time they started the business, they would get anything for you," he said. "If they didn't have it, they would find it."

Call The Bee's Bob Walter, (916) 773-7388.