I love when the real world of Snoqualmie Valley, Washington intersects with the wonderful and strange world of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks. In Twin Peaks: The Return, there are several hand-painted murals seen across the street from the Double R Diner (known as Twede’s Cafe in North Bend). Local Artist Richard “Dick” Burhans created and donated these murals in 2009 as part of North Bend’s Centennial Celebration.
WHO IS RICHARD “DICK” BURHANS?
A member of the 1951 graduating class of Bogota High School in New Jersey, Richard Burhans continued his education at the New York Phoenix School of Design, where he studied fine art and graduated magna cum laude in 1955. Afterward, he worked as a freelance magazine and book illustrator in New York City. His last commission prior to induction into the United States Army was Hi Fi Music at Home’s memorial cover of maestro Auturo Toscanini.
His military service stationed him in the Pacific Northwest, where, upon completing his tour in the late 1960s, he launched Burhans Design Associates, an architectural design firm in Seattle. Throughout his industrial career Richard continued studying art and produced many landscape, portrait and mural commissions. Shortly after his 1967 marriage to Sallie, they built their studio-residence – the now defunct Cedar Eddy Studios – near North Bend along the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River.
While living in Snoqualmie Valley, Burhans provided a range of civic services in support of many landmarks. In 1976, he chaired the Preservation of Mount Si Committee, and the following year served in the mediated agreement that created Three Forks Park. In the 1990s, Dick chaired the Snoqualmie Citizen’s Advisory Committee on Flooding for then Mayor Jeanne Hansen, and also served as the King County Boundary Review Board vice chair, one of the authorizing bodies which created Snoqualmie Ridge.
His community artworks were displayed throughout the Snoqualmie Valley, including the North Bend Library mural, “Characters from the Classics,” Starbucks Coffee, “The Coffee House in Art Music & Letters,” and the Snoqualmie Ridge TPC, “Opening Day.”
In 1976, Dick and Sallie Burhans volunteered their architectural and design expertise renovate the Snoqualmie City Hall. According to the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, this was the first brick building in town. It would remain the City Hall for the next fourteen years, until the Thanksgiving 1990 floods when the building was severely damaged. The building would be home to the Chamber of Commerce from around 2010 to 2017. Today it’s home to Buckshot Honey, a fantastic place to get food and hand-crafted cocktails.
Burhans created five paintings about the history of logging for the renovation project that hung in the city hall chambers for years.
In July 2019, the city of Snoqualmie honored Burhans with a lifetime achievement award for his services to the Valley.
The last update for Burhans’ Cedar Eddy Studios website grabbed for the Wayback Machine is from March 2023. I’ve been unable to locate any additional information about Dick except that he might be 92 years old now. Typically when a website goes defunct, it means an individual may have passed. Yet no obituary exists for Mr. Burhans, so he could still be living among the trees in Snoqualmie Valley.
NORTH BEND CELEBRATES CENTENNIAL MURALS IN 2009
In 2009, the town of North Bend celebrated it’s 100th Anniversary. Did you know the town of North Bend used to be known as Snoqualmie and the town of Snoqualmie was known as Snoqualmie Falls?
In 1865, Matts Peterson homesteaded land that became North Bend. He moved to the Cascades in 1879 after selling his land to Jeremiah Borst, who is considered the father of Snoqualmie Valley. Borst contacted Will Taylor who had left the area for a mining job in California. In exchange for labor, Borst said Taylor could have the land. He would soon name the town Snoqualmie Prairie but had to change it to Mountain View due to objections by the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway.
You see, further down the line, civil engineer Charles Baker had named a town Snoqualmie Falls after the natural wonder nearby – the 268-foot waterfall. He would later develop the underground power plant at Snoqualmie Falls. The railroad thought the similarly named towns would cause confusion.
Sadly, Taylor’s Mountain View didn’t stick either as the United States Postal Service said there was a town with that name in Northwestern Washington state. He ultimately chose North Bend due to the location northward bend of the South and Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. North Bend was officially incorporated on March 12, 1909 with Peter J. Maloney, a local entrepreneur serving as the first mayor.
To mark the occasion, the city commissioned Dick Burhans to paint a five-panel, 50-foot mural that celebrated the burgeoning arts community in the region.
Titled “The Arts in North Bend are Alive and Growing,” these five murals were installed on the exterior wall of the Glazier Building at 116 North Bend Way, across the street from Twede’s Cafe. They were in time for a centennial block party held on Saturday, June 27, 2009 from 4:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Burhans was one of 35 artists taking part in the “Festival of the Arts,” a celebration of local creativity during the Festival at Mount Si held in August 2009 that year.
“We really haven’t been able to publicize enough how many really fine artists we have in the community,” Burhans told the Snoqualmie Valley Record’s Seth Truscott on May 26, 2009. “You start to get a feeling for the undercurrent of art that the community has.”
The five panels included North Bend husband and wife team and Valley Center Stage members, Gary Schwartz, Actor and Director; and Tina Brandon, wife and co-creator (left mural); and Richard Buchmiller, Creative Stitchery (right mural).
Schwartz is an award-winning TV and film actor, director, comedian and a master improvisational acting coach whose 30 years as a performer and improv teacher.
Born Aug. 7, 1952 in Schenectady, NY, Gary began his professional career as a mime at age 13, performing up and down the Hudson River with Pete Seegar, Arlo Guthrie and other great folk entertainers of the 60’s. In the 70’s and 80’s he appeared in numerous film and television projects including the Oscar-winning feature film Quest for Fire and 65 episodes of the Emmy-winning series Zoobilee Zoo with Ben Vereen.
As a voice actor, Gary has worked with Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Tim Burton, Kenneth Brannagh and many other well-known directors. Details of his extensive acting career are available at IMDB.com. Today, he runs Improv-Odyssey, which teaches skills and “enhances effectiveness of leadership teams, improves teamwork within an organizations, bolsters an individual’s self-confidence.”
Gary married Tina Brandon on Nov. 7, 1985. She attended John Marshall High School and studied accounting at Cal-State Northridge. She worked at the Los Angeles Free Press. The couple founded the Valley Center Stage, a nonprofit performing arts group dedicated to entertaining and serving the Snoqualmie Valley community.
You can see the nonprofit organization’s logo above the Double R Diner in this establishing shot from Twin Peaks Part 15. This image also contains the Washington state street sign for Bendigo Blvd. If you look in the lower left corner, you can see these murals on the now closed, salmon-colored Glazier Building.
The organization performed in the Masonic Lodge, Unity #198, in downtown North Bend for 19 years before moving to the historic Sallal Grange in 2022.
Harley Brumbaugh, Music Creator and Director (left mural) and potter Jeff Griswold (right mural) are featured.
Dressed in a vest and derby, Brumbaugh is one of Snoqualmie Valley’s musical giants. A trumpet player, choral director, composer and educator, he was involved in all dimensions of music since his career began while he was still in his teens. Brumbaugh toured the world as a musician and directed the Methodist Church choir and the Voices of the Valley. Sadly, Brumbaugh, a retired Snoqualmie Valley History Museum Board Member, passed on July 25, 2021.
Jeff Griswold launched Serene Environments Construction, Inc. in 2007 which specializes in renovation projects that incorporate Jeff’s artistic style.
Adjacent to a wooden plaque stating “Are Alive And Growing,” (the “G” is missing today), local women Joyce Littlejohn and Georgia Kramer appear alongside Burhans himself as models for the mural.
Littlejohn was born Sept. 26, 1933 and passed away March 6 2011, in Olympia WA. She was born to Ted and Clara Kinscherf in Leavenworth, WA, where she spent her youth. In Nov. 1951. Joyce and her husband Cecil lived on the Olympia dairy farm where they ran a dairy and logging operation until 1962. Then they acquired a three-year logging job on the end of the North Fork Road in Snoqualmie, where they moved. The logging business in the Snoqualmie Valley would keep them busy for the next 40 years.
Georgia Miller Kramer was born in Everett, WA on Feb. 22, 1931 and died in Snoqualmie on Aug. 19, 2022. When she was 5 years old, her family moved to Ernie’s Grove in Snoqualmie, and Georgia lived in the family home until she was married on Jan. 28, 1949. She and her husband, Don bought the family home in 1950 when Georgia’s parents, Herbert and Daisy Miller, moved just down the road. Georgia spent the rest of her life in that home, until June 30, 2021, when her health required her to move to a home with a caregiver.
She starting volunteering at King County Si View Pool in 1960, eventually becoming a full-time employee and manager. Georgia wore many hats at Si view Pool, Water Safety Instructor, Swim Team Coach, Water Ballet Coach, Water Aerobics instructor, Swim Instructor, Lifeguard, Life Saving Instructor for future lifeguards and First Aid Instructor. She was also a Red Cross Volunteer, and a member of the Hospital Auxiliary. Georgia was the first woman to be invited to join the North Bend Kiwanis, she was President of the Business & Professional Women’s Foundation and honored as Woman of the Year.
APPEARANCES IN TWIN PEAKS
The building across the street was once home to Glazier’s Dry Goods and Lee Bros. Grocery. In October 1932, Al (Elvyn) H. Lee acquired the building where he and his brother Art ran Lee Brothers’ Grocery. With a planned road-widening happening around 1940, Lee updated his building to a more Art Moderne look which was popular at the time. The grocery seems to have operated until possibly around the 1970s.
By the time filming for Twin Peaks began in North Bend on Feb. 21, 1989, the building was vacant.
In Sept. 1991, Snoqualmie Valley Antique Mall operated in the building. You can see the logo in a deleted scene from The Missing Pieces.
When Laura Palmer receives the framed picture from the Grandmother and her grandson outside the Double R Diner, you can see the Glazier building without the murals. There are several empty white panels where Burhans artwork would eventually be installed. These panels were most likely windows from the time when the building served as a grocery store.
The first time we see the murals in The Return is found in Part 7 when the camera captures nighttime action in the diner.
As Shelly Johnson stands behind the counter in Part 11, we can see the first panel with Gary Schwartz and Tina Brandon behind a patron.
When Shelly meets Red during the middle of a family meeting, there is a point-of-view shot from Bobby Briggs of the front door. Beyond the door are the first two murals on the Glazier building.
After gunshots ring out breaking a window, Deputy Briggs crawls out of the front of the Double R Diner. As he opens the door, you can see two of the murals.
As Bobby cautiously walks toward the gunfire, the illuminated murals across the street appear in the background.
In Part 13, Shelly Johnson speaks with her daughter Becky from the middle of the Double R Diner. Burhans’ murals are seen again behind the patrons seated at the counter.
Later in the episode when Bobby Briggs visits the diner at night, there is an establishing shot with the murals in the background. A Twin Peaks resident walks along the sidewalk by them as a white car passes by.
A daytime establishing shot of the Double R Diner has the murals in the background when Big Ed parks his truck.
The last appearance of these murals by Richard “Dick” Burhans is seen when Big Ed is seated at the Double R Diner counter just before Norma surprises him.
This real world item may be something rather obscure to identify but obscure is what I do best on Twin Peaks Blog. It’s a fantastic connection to local Snoqualmie Valley history of the Real Twin Peaks.
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