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A mural artwork is gracing the wall of the Bitworks building in Taylors Falls, put there to recognize contributions of the local Rivard family.  

Artist Christopher Young is himself a product of Taylors Falls.  He painted the Devil’s Chair mural in 2003, (to reader’s left of mural, facing the Marmon Parking Lot.)   Young is a Taylors Falls native and graduate of the former k-12 school (now a gradeschool.)  Young went out to Klamath Falls, Oregon to be a fourth grade teacher and he now teaches teachers, attending community college.

He specializes in creating history-themed murals throughout northern California and the Klamath Falls Basin.
The Taylors Falls artwork took about a week to complete. Bitworks is the main sponsor along with downtown merchants.

The photo that served as the basis for the mural is an image of the 1912 Farmers Interstate Creamery, so named until 1923 when the building was purchased by Arthur Rivard and then dubbed Taylors Falls Creamery. A 1947 photographic image, once it had evolved into a gas station, depicts the creamery employees; four of seven Rivard family children, and brothers Myles, Lloyd, Kenneth and Earl Rivard.

The creamery/etc. closed in 1962 and the structure came down in 1993.

The Rivard families’ various businesses were cornerstones of the Taylors Falls economy making for a good subject for a public artwork. They owned a grocery, a sporting goods store, gas station, Val Croix Ski Area and of course the creamery.

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