The Bakken Museum is a super cool science museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1975 by Earl Bakken, who co-founded Medtronic.
This museum features interactive exhibits about science, technology, and the humanities. One of the highlights of the museum is an extensive exhibit based on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein.
The museum boasts an impressive collection of approximately 11,000 written works and about 2,000 scientific instruments.
Notably, some of these instruments have been specifically designed for electrophysiology and electrotherapeutics. The collection includes works by some of the most renowned scientists and inventors of all time, including Benjamin Franklin, Giovanni Battista Beccaria, and Alessandro Volta.
The museum's Frankenstein exhibit is particularly fascinating. Mary Shelley's novel and the subsequent 1931 film version, starring Boris Karloff, inspired Earl Bakken to pursue his interest in invention. This led to his invention of the pacemaker and the founding of Medtronic.
The Bakken Museum was founded by Earl Bakken, who also founded Medtronic in 1949. Bakken had a lifelong interest in electricity and invention, which started when he was a boy.
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As a self-described "nerd," he designed a rudimentary electroshock weapon in school to fend off bullies.
The museum's collection began to take shape in 1969, at Bakken's suggestion. Dennis Stillings, who worked for Medtronic in its library at the time, began acquiring books and devices.
The collection was well known among antiquarians by 1974 and was offered two lots of early electrical devices.
The collection was first stored at the Medtronic headquarters in Saint Anthony Village, Minnesota, and by 1975, it occupied a floor in the Medtronic branch office in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Finally, in 1976, the collection was moved to its current location.
The Bakken Museum is housed in a beautiful building that was originally constructed between 1928 and 1930 as the home of William Goodfellow.
The home was named "West Winds"and features a combination of 16th-century English styles, including Tudor and Gothic Revival. When Goodfellow died in 1944, he donated the building to the Girl Scouts. The Cornelius family lived there between 1953 and 1976, after which the house became the Bakken Museum.
In 1999, the museum underwent an expansion that doubled its size from 13,000 sq ft to 25,000 sq ft. The collection is protected in a 1,200 sq ft underground vault built in 1981, which maintains a constant temperature of 65 °F and 55 percent relative humidity.
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The museum also used to fund the Bakken Quartet, which performed chamber music on the premises. Today, the group is named the Bakken Trio and performs in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
