Stockholm Museum, Stockholm, WI

In the Village of Stockholm there is a small, picturesque museum in a building that was once the old Post Office. It is the home of the Stockholm Institute, a historical society incorporated in 1984 to preserve and celebrate the history of the Stockholm area.

Stockholm was fortunate to have been the home of Orlin Anderson, now deceased, who was a dedicated amateur historian and archiver of all things related to the area. He was also a dedicated pack-rat and because of that predilection there are probably items and photos in the museum that would otherwise have been long lost.

Orlin’s enthusiasm for all things old encouraged others to donate their objects, books, and photos, and it may have been the accumulation of items that inspired insightful residents to create an organization that would preserve and display this wealth of material and memories. Thus was born the Institute. Its visitors come from across the country and around the world. It publishes a regular newsletter for its members, and in the past has been a sponsor of the Heritage Days that Stockholm has hosted.

In 2006, the Institute welcomed the 50-member Bjurtjarn Theater Group. This group toured the U.S. performing its play “Off to America – They Sold their Homesteads" (a story about their ancestors who founded Stockholm). After the events and festivities, the theater group donated the rights to the play to the Stockholm Institute.

The Institute’s museum building has recently been refurbished and redecorated in an appropriate Swedish palette, with new shelves for books and a large work table available for visitors who wish to review the family histories that have been gathered. A local archivist is also in the process of identifying and organizing the Institute’s wealth of material (some of it retrieved from Orlin’s estate) so that it remains usable to future historians.

The Stockholm museum hours for May-October are