Public Art Fun Facts: The A&W Burger Family

Описание: Cultural Arts staffer LeAnn Alsop tells us about the history of the A&W Burger Family statues located at the Shute Park Aquatic & Recreation Center (953 SE Maple St, Hillsboro, OR. 97123).

Script Text:
Hi and welcome to Public Art Fun Facts! A new series where we introduce you to some of the public art around the City of Hillsboro. I’m LeAnn. I’m one of the public art staff members here for the City, and I’ll be your tour guide as we explore some of this amazing artwork.

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So today I’d like to introduce you to one of our oldest public art residents. This is the A&W Burger Family. If you haven’t seen them before, they live just outside of the SHARC – right next to the pickleball court and right off of 10th Ave.

As their name suggests, they are remnants of the 1950s and 60s drive-in restaurant culture. There’s not very many of these sculptures left in the entire United States, and the City of Hillsboro is lucky enough to have an entire family of them. In fact, they are so unique they were designated a Cultural Resource in 1983.

Our particular family has had quite the adventurous life. They were originally purchased in the 1950s to go outside of an A&W restaurant here in town. In the 1970s, Teen Burger was stolen by a bunch of high schoolers and unfortunately damaged beyond repair. The other three family members were repainted in the 1980s to look like an Italian family and moved outside of the Papa Aldo’s restaurant on 10th Ave.

In 1990, Mama, Papa, and Baby Burger were donated to the City as a public art piece and were moved to their current location. The City wanted to have an entire family, and so we located a Teen Burger, restored him, and then reunited him with our family. In 2008, a visitor tried to sit on Baby Burger’s hamburger and unfortunately broke off her arm. Parks and Recreation had to remove her from the location in order to conduct repairs on her. This caused quite a stir among Hillsboro residents. The City began receiving a number of very worried phone calls about her location. These phone calls kind of reminded City staff of an Amber Alert, so to this day Parks & Recreation has dubbed Baby Burger “Amber.”

That’s all I have for you today. If you would like to come and visit the Burger Family, they absolutely love visitors and they love photographs.

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