The Bakken Museum was established by Earl Bakken, the co-founder of Medtronic, a company that started out repairing electronic equipment in the field of medicine in 1949. Eight years later, the company partnered with cardiac surgeon Walton Lillehei to develop the world?s first external, wearable, and battery-powered transistorized pacemaker.

When his business was running successfully, Bakken indulged in his passion for collecting historical electronic equipment used for therapeutic purposes. His sizeable collection eventually became the seed for the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life, which was incorporated in 1975. A year after that, the collection had been transferred to its current home, the Eest Winds mansion, which had been completed in 1930. Its original owner William Goodfellow commissioned Carl Gage to design the mansion, which boasts of a blend of European Gothic Revival and English Tudor architecture among other styles.