Edmund Joseph Jacobs (1915 – 2007)
	
Ed Jacobs was born in Alberta.(("Edmund Joseph Jacobs." //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 15 June 2007.)) In his early teens, Jacobs and his buddies built a snow machine with an airplane engine. Ed Jacobs was the first civilian to drive the Alaska Highway and he arrived in Whitehorse in 1943. He was hauling airplane parts. His brothers worked for Canadian Airlines and one of the planes lost an engine in Whitehorse. The Jacobs brothers came to replace it, and Ed never left.((Genesee Keevil, "Pioneering mayor dies at 91." //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 18 June 2007.))\\ 
	
Ed married Ina Thorburn in 1942. They moved to the Yukon in 1943 and started Jacob's Motors (Jacob's Industries Ltd.).(("Edmund Joseph Jacobs." //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 15 June 2007.)) During the Second World War, Ed started tinkering with repairs to aluminium aircraft engine cylinders which frequently broke. It was some of the first aluminium welding ever done. He saved his welding business money on oxygen and acetylene by buying the first oxygen plant in Whitehorse. He hauled it north from Phoenix, Arizona in an old tractor-trailer. He set the plant up behind his service station, but it was not functional until the hospital's oxygen shipment missed the barge to Skagway and the hospital was running low.((Genesee Keevil, "Pioneering mayor dies at 91." //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 18 June 2007.))\\
	
In 1961, a block of historic buildings, including the White Pass Hotel, burned in downtown Whitehorse. Jacobs gave up his Christmas Day to get the city’s fire truck to work non-stop for twenty hours. Ed was covered in ice from the blowing spray. Ed Jacobs was elected mayor of Whitehorse from 1952 to 1966.((Pat Ellis, “History burned on Christmas Day, 1961.” //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 18 February 2022.))\\
	
Jacobs expanded his business to Inuvik, supplying oxygen to the hospital, nursing stations, labs and welding businesses. In Whitehorse, he mounted the DC 3 weather vane on a single pedestal at the Transportation Museum, in spite of those who thought that side winds would send it flying. Jacobs solved the problem by building a revolving pedestal. He built countless tools because they were not available in the north. He and son Bob opened a silver mine in the late 1970s at Casino. When it went under, they moved over the mountain and started digging for gold. His work was his main love, but he also took his family camping and boating. He built the first two roads into Lake Laberge and Bob remembers when his dad took his small Caterpillar into Deep Creek. The cat was too small to pull out trees, so they went around the big ones creating a very twisty road. Deciding Jackfish Bay was a better harbour; Jacobs got a bigger cat and made another road. He also put in the road to Haeckel ski hill and put in a rope tow. He was still working at his machine/welding shop when he was in his 80s. In 2001, Ed Jacobs was named Transportation Person of the Year and was inducted into the Yukon Transportation Hall of Fame. In 2007, Ed’s grandson Paul Jacobs was working at the business his father, Bob Jacobs, took over in 2004.((Genesee Keevil, "Pioneering mayor dies at 91." //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 18 June 2007.))