In Twin Peaks Part 7 on Showtime, there is an aerial establishing shot of Yankton Federal Prison in Sioux City, South Dakota. But like many things in Twin Peaks, looks can be deceiving. The real location used for this establishing shot is located approximately 1,388 miles to the east of the actual   minimum security federal prison camp.
When the episode originally aired on Showtime on June 18, 2017, I looked up Yankton Federal Prison.  The Federal Bureau of Prisons has an actual prison camp located at 1016 Douglas Avenue in Yankton, South Dakota.
This presented two challenges: 1) the prison is not located in Sioux City, South Dakota as the on-screen graphics indicated, and 2) this prison is not the one shown in the establishing shot since the buildings don’t match.
The seven-second establishing shot clearly shows a buildings with blue roofs and surrounded by wilderness. As it turns out, this location is South Woods State Prison located at 215 S. Burlington Road, Bridgeton, New Jersey.
How did I find it?
When identifying locations, I typically search for background graphics, signs or logos that may narrow my search options. This time, it was a white truck with “NJDOC” printed in black – New Jersey Department of Corrections. I then searched state prisons in New Jersey and discovered 12 options. For some reason, I selected the last one on the list which turned out to be the correct prison.
Now that I found the actual prison, I wanted to located the stock footage from the episode. I figured the seven-second clip was stock footage since it was highly doubtful a crew traveled to New Jersey for aerial footage. This would be similar to how stock footage was used for Buenos Aires, New York City, and Diane Evans’ apartment.
I first checked Getty Images but couldn’t find a match. So I searched for video of “South Woods State Prison” and was directed to Pond5.
AirbeatsExpress shot the matching video in 2011. The description read: “Orbiting South Woods Correctional Facility near Bridgeton, New Jersey.” Airbeats also provided the stock footage used for the Pentagon at night from Twin Peaks Part 5 on Showtime.
As you can see on the map above, it’s quite a distance from the on-screen prison versus the actual prison in South Dakota.
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