Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia

History:

With completion of the third Elizabethtown Coca-Cola Bottling Plant in 1971, Bill and his wife Jan began to search out a few Coca-Cola antiques to decorate office spaces. By 1976, their passion for collecting Coca-Cola memorabilia was filling warehouses. In 1976, dedicated space was created in the bottling plant for the Schmidt Museum Collection of Coca-Cola Memorabilia, which opened to the public in March of 1977. After 25 years and almost a million visitors from around the world, the Museum closed in November of 1999 due to changes in State safety regulations. In April of 2001, The Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia reopened in the Elizabethtown Tourism and Convention Center located at 1030 North Mulberry. The interim museum exhibited over 1100 rare artifacts from a collection, which now numbers well over 80,000 items. In the Fall of 2005 the Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia moved to its new 32,000 sq. ft. museum/warehouse facility located at 109 Buffalo Creek Drive, Elizabethtown. KY.