Wisconsin Petroleum Museum
Retired Service station owner preserved U.S. transportation history with Wisconsin Petroleum Museum.
2024 update — After two decades of educating more than 80,000 visitors, the Northwoods Petroleum Museum on Highway 45 has closed for good, according to museum founder Ed Jacobsen, 80, of Three Lakes, Wisconsin.
Deciding to leave his job as oil company sales rep in the Chicago area, Ed Jacobsen in the late 1960s bought his first service station. More than three decades and six stations later, he retired to his wife’s hometown of Three Lakes, in the Northwoods region of upper Wisconsin. Missing the world of service stations, Jacobson began gathering artifacts to establish a petroleum museum.
Ed Jacobsen’s expertise — and love for “the world of service stations” — led to the 2006 opening of Wisconsin’s Northwoods Petroleum Museum.
When by 2006 his petroleum-related memorabilia climbed above 2,700 items, Jacobson (and his wife) realized there was a looming storage problem — although he still maintained that technically, he was not a collector.
“Many collectors buy, sell or trade memorabilia to make money,” he says. “I believe in the educational value of these items – and preserving a history many people may have forgotten.” (more…)
