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Mama Burger, Papa Burger, Teen Burger, Baby Burger. The adult's root beer mugs are three feet tall.
Mama Burger, Papa Burger, Teen Burger, Baby Burger. The adults' root beer mugs are three feet tall.

Civic Pride Burger Family (In Transition)

Field review by the editors.

Hillsboro, Oregon

When A&W Root Beer began erecting fiberglass Burger Family statues in 1963 -- Papa Burger, Mama Burger, Teen Burger, and Baby Burger -- it was just a promotion for its new four-size hamburger menu.

Dad and teen son Burger.

The company couldn't have imagined that, twenty years later, the Burger Family of Hillsboro, Oregon, would be designated a "Cultural Resource" by the town's Planning Commission, and that ten years after that the Family would be restored (by the Hilhi Art Club) and given a special landscaped place of honor in front of the town's recreation center (by the Tualatin Valley Garden Club), as well as their own bronze information plaque, just as if they were real works of public art.

The plaque notes that Teen Burger was brought into the Family in 1996 from Longview, Washington, after the original Hillsboro Teen went missing in the 1970s (We'd received a tip that he'd been stolen by high school punks and dumped in local Hagg Lake).

Smiling at the competition: Golden Arch visible next to Papa's left ear.
Smiling at the competition: Golden Arch visible next to Papa's left ear.

Close inspection of the statues shows that they are now firmly bolted to the ground. They've also stood longer in Hillsboro as Cultural Resources than they did selling hamburgers.

There was only one flaw in the Family's ennoblement: though they smiled bravely, they were cruelly positioned to stare directly at a pair of Golden Arches of a McDonald's across the street! And then the McDonald's was shuttered, leaving only part of the Arches to mark its passing. We wonder if perhaps the unblinking eyes of the Burger Family forced the competition to flee.

Civic Pride Burger Family

Directions:
On the west side of SE 10th Ave. between Maple and Cedar Sts. Park on Cedar St.
Hours:
Currently undergoing repairs.
Admission:
Free
Status:
In Transition

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