In the latter half of Twin Peaks Part 8 on Showtime, there is a short scene of a boy (played by Xolo Maridueña) and a girl (played by Tikaeni Faircrest) walking by a gas station. This monochromatic scene is supposed to take place on August 5, 1956 in New Mexico. In reality, the scene was shot in southern California. I found the location based on an interview with Location Manager Eric Fierstein in Variety.
FINDING THE SPOT
In the interview, Eric mentioned “an amazing 230-acre property that’s been around since 1875 that a lot of people don’t know about, right at the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains [in Ventura County].”
This led me to NewHallFilm.com (which now redirects to SVCLocations.com), which has an expansive property in that same area used for film locations.
I figured it had to be shot on this private property, so I clicked on each marker until I found a matching location titled “Garage.”
Their website is acting a weird, but I found link which I located on the Wayback Machine. It revealed a larger image of the location that originally appeared on the now defunct Panoramio website. This page listed coordinates - 34°23’55.4″N 118°38’20.6″W - so I checked Google Maps.
Bingo! Found it. The aerial view image above shows the location where the first part of this black and white scene took place.
SCREEN-TO-LOCATION COMPARISON
Luckily, thanks to the internet, I found a public image folder with this shot from the actual location.
Sadly, the garage is gone. It appears to have been removed at some point between January-August 2018 according to Google Earth. It was still present in December 2017 (I’m totally bummed I’ll never get to visit that actual garage, sort of like Dead Dog Farm from Season 2 which has been completely destroyed). To paraphrase Jerry Horne, man, I’m depressed.
NATURALUBE MOTOR OIL
One thing I found the day after the episode aired on June 25, 2017 was a sign for Lion Naturalube Motor. It can best be seen in the first image of this article. A similar tin sign from the 1950s sold in 2013 for $1,232.
PICKING UP THE PENNY
As the couple walks along, the girl reaches down to pick up a heads-up penny. She claims it will bring her good luck and the boy hopes that it will.
Here is a side by side comparison of the scene from the episode and the actual location.
THE LINCOLN PENNY
The Lincoln penny the girl finds is from 1945, which may be a nod to an earlier part of this episode when an atomic bomb detonates in the desert.
A closer look at the penny looks like it could be a 1945-D Lincoln Wheat Penny. According to Collections.com:
“The 1945-D Wheat penny was desgined at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, who lamented the lack of artistic merit in U.S. Currency. Roosevelt originally chose sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, a noted sculptor, to design what became the Wheat Penny. However, when Saint-Gaudens passed away, the job fell to Victor David Brenner. Roosevelt felt that the new cent should honor his fellow Republican Abraham Lincoln because of the impending 100th Anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, which came in 1909.“
This blog is wonderful. Found it while wondering whether the other gas station shots in this and the previous episode are actually miniatures. I’m referring to the shots of the shadow people escaping from the gas station along with smoke and flashes of light. Is that a different spot in Newhall?
@PScott – Thank you! Glad you found the Blog. The Convenience Store with the Woodsman from Season 3 was shot at a set the crew built outside North Bend, Washington. See this article for details: https://www.twinpeaksblog.com/2019/09/25/twin-peaks-film-location-convenience-store-in-season-3/