A mason jiggled the cornerstone loose a couple of weeks early, the one that read “1925,” the one fitted into the facade of the village hall in Winnetka. He loosened it just to be safe. See, the village didn’t want a repeat of 50 years ago, when everyone who was anyone gathered to open a time capsule behind that cornerstone and the powers that be couldn’t figure out how to pry it out of the building. So they cheated this time — so sue them. They had a Bicentennial time capsule cemented into the building for decades, full of artifacts; they had a crowd of 100 or so locals, baking under a July sun, waiting eagerly, silently; and when the capsule was opened, what they discovered was …
Eh, nothing too exciting.
Aerial photos of the village; newsletters; a license plate. An “ERA YES!” pin. The essay they fished out, about the U.S. Constitution, written in 1976 by teenager Barbara Brott, was poignant. Now a Stanford University neurobiologist, she attended the ceremony and read what she had written 50 years earlier. When she was finished, she said quietly: “What you just heard were the thoughts of a very young person thinking independently for the first time.” It’s what you hope from a time capsule.
A wormhole into the past.
And yet, just as often, you wonder:
Did our ancestors understand the assignment?
“Truthfully, I would rather see something more personal when people bury these things, something that speaks to their moment,” said Mary Trieschmann, executive director of the Winnetka Historical Society. She recalled opening a time capsule left by village elders in 1925 — a few pamphlets, a list of board members et al — and asking herself:
“What were they thinking?”
It’s a good time to ask that again. There are so many time capsules being opened, and buried, in Illinois this summer — indeed, so many capsules being opened nationwide, a byproduct of the Bicentennial Fever that swept the country in 1976 — it’s worth pausing to ask: What should we expect out of this? A portrait of a bygone era? A connection to ancestors? A charming splash of nostalgia?
Or business cards from businesses no longer in business?
I spoke with nearly every community in Illinois that is opening or sealing a time capsule this year, and more often than not, what’s inside are, yes, business cards, a list of board members, speeches by mayors, lapel pins, corporate pamphlets, a city budget. For reasons unclear, a number of Bicentennial time capsules contain copies of JCPenney catalogs (probably so future generations can marvel at the price of jeans and socks). Please don’t misunderstand me, I love time capsules just like you love time capsules. There are so many time capsules, there are at least two businesses, Time Capsules Inc. of Pennsylvania, and Heritage Time Capsules of New York, dedicated to creating these small vessels, into which we are tasked with leaving meaningful objects for future generations. I just wish we were a little more … colorful, and meditative, and personal.
Early last month, DuPage County buried a capsule, inviting county leaders to contribute items. “The mayor of Wheaton and I closed the capsule and he reached across (the capsule) and shook my hand, and it meant a lot,” said Deborah Conroy, DuPage County Board Chair. “It was all of us working together, valuing our community.” Glendale Heights left an account of a daring rescue last year by two police officers on a frozen pond. West Chicago, founded in 1849 as a railway hub, left a toy train. Glenn Ellyn left a leaf from a 200-year-old tree. All thoughtful, culturally telling items. Less so: A garbage sticker from Lisle, a Trader Joe’s gift card (with no value) and annual fiscal reports.
And yet, even an unremarkable time capsule is a window into the past.
Judy Schultz of the Frankfort Area Historical Society, which opened its capsule July 4, said they pried off the lid early for a preview, “since alI I could think about was damn Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone’s vault (in 1986) and not a thing in it.” (She was “slightly disappointed” at what they found, more paperwork than insights.)Some feel ironic. The Elgin High School Class of ’76 time capsule was opened in June. Gale Miller, who served on the school’s Bicentennial committee (though she was Class of ’77), was there to find… a JCPenney catalog, a copy of the school’s dress code. “Hair could only be so long, no sweatshirts — it’s hilarious since students dressed like (expletive) in 1976. There was a Pet Rock, with a homemade house, but I do wish (the capsule) had been more honest about what it was like then. There was nothing on all of the racial tensions in Elgin at the time. The principal then wouldn’t have allowed it. And so this time capsule reflects the times very selectively.”
We don’t tend to see our everyday lives as history.
When the western Illinois village of Industry (pop. 399) opened its capsule in June, it found a 1976 shaving permit. Said James Trotter, the local farmer who presented the contents: “Every man had a beard, and if you didn’t, you bought a permit for one dollar. It wasn’t strictly enforced.” Perhaps more meaningful was the simple list of local businesses that existed in 1976. The only one still operating in Industry is the bank — the village had lost a third of its population in 50 years.
Of course, the length of time between burial and excavation matters. What DuPage buried might be fascinating in 250 years, but they’re digging up their capsule in only 25 years.
The first known American capsule, buried in 1795 by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, held Massachusetts Colony records and newspapers. After it was opened and resealed in 1855, it was untouched until 2014. Maybe the alien overlords who open the nation’s America250 time capsule in 2276 will be excited by the letter to future citizens that Gov. JB Pritzker included in Illinois’ contribution, but I’m betting they’ll be more intrigued by Maine’s whale bones or Ohio’s patch of fabric from the Wright Brothers’ first airplane. On the other hand, so much of society transformed between 1962, when a capsule was buried in the Chicago Board of Trade, and 1976, when it was opened; its contents, a list of predictions from civic leaders, held resonance: President of the Chicago Historical Society imagined cars would be outlawed from The Loop. Mayor Richard J. Daley predicted “the completion of a vast and adequate system of highways and boulevards.” (If you’ve ever cursed while waiting in construction traffic lately, the key word there is “adequate.”)
Also, the placement of your time capsule matters.
When Woodridge buried its capsule beneath a sleepy corner in 1976, it wasn’t planning on its future as a densely developing Chicago exurb. So, as village mayor Gina Cunningham explained, as they dug the capsule out of a now-busy intersection last spring, they hadn’t considered the way erosion and steadily rumbling traffic conspire: “The box was chipped and broken. You were kind of holding your breath. Then everything started falling out of the bottom and back into the hole, which was full of water.” Woodridge spent months drying out 500 artifacts, most of them essays by local students and residents. Cunningham’s own essay from 1976 was lost: “That’s probably a blessing. We were answering what Woodridge would be like in 2026, and I definitely expected flying cars.”
It is too bad, since predictions are often the most telling (and common) inclusion in a time capsule. Woodridge was no exception. One school student predicted: “The air (in 2026) will be bad to breathe but I will have a mansion with a pool.” Another anticipated: “There’s not going to be a Woodridge, because of the Energy Crisis.” Knute Knudson, a manager at Kroger for 31 years, wrote a long autobiography of sorts: “A Resume of My Journey on This Planet Called Earth.” (He concluded: “I liked selling food very much.”)
Water damage is a common problem with time capsules — but then so is simple neglect.
Those time capsules in both Elgin and Industry were mostly forgotten until recently. Stacy Peterson, communications manager (and chief time-capsule organizer) for the city of Peoria, said a capsule was buried in city hall in the late 1890s. “But they also left no directions of when to open it or even where it was,” she said. “The good thing is this building is made of Lake Superior red sandstone and has to be worked on every year, so I told crews to watch for a time capsule, and sure enough, last November, they found it.”
The contents were in such good shape that “we had an audience there to watch, and the preservationist was so stunned that he forgot to tell everyone what he was removing.”
Among the items, a single buckeye.
“It was such a tangible connection to the past that it just kind of sang, but yes, there were also park budgets, stuff like that — I find what’s often missing is the human voice.”
When Peoria buried a new capsule in April (to be opened in 2126), Peterson made sure to include an empty COVID vaccine vial, the story of a local shoeshiner and one buckeye.
Anything that spoke of everyday Peoria.
A time capsule, after all, at their most evocative, can be an old town; an uncle’s living room; the backseat of an SUV that hasn’t been cleaned out in years. Illinois Voice 250, a statewide initiative from the Illinois 250 Commission, Illinois Humanities and StoryCorps, is gathering conversations with residents for an oral time capsule. In June, Kathy Tabak of Barrington discovered a plastic bin beneath her wedding dress, in an unused closet of her home. Inside, at least 100 items from the Bicentennial, well preserved: Bicentennial sugar packets, Bicentennial “Dennis the Menace” comics, collected by her mother, Rita Lyons of Rock Island, who died in a car accident in 1992.
“I don’t know if Mom thought of it as a time capsule, but I do,” Tabak said. “She’s not here to ask, it was never buried, she never said how to handle it — but it felt like her.”
At its most touching, a time capsule becomes a conversation across decades.
When the village of Bartonville, outside of Peoria, opened its capsule recently, they found letters by the Bicentennial committee to their kids. Barb Bazhenow, who chaired the committee, is now 97. While her daughter, Estaline Stewart, read her letter — which was about Estaline’s wedding, Barb’s nursing, how proud her parents were of her — Barb said: “I remember when I wrote that letter, I cried the whole time. The committee members were all laughing at me and saying I was being sentimental. But the thing is, it felt so strange to write that, to assume I wouldn’t be alive in 2026 to see it read again.”
Even stranger was the capsule itself: a child’s casket, donated by a funeral home. Tom Marak, owner of Time Capsules Inc., said many time capsules being opened now came from funeral directors, or were made by public works departments using hardware-store materials. There were like messages in a bottle, archival Hail Marys. His capsules, stainless steel rectangular boxes, engineered with corrosion and humidity in mind, have been installed by the Newberry Library and the Illinois Department of Transportation, and are guaranteed to last 500 years — although the 2526 return policy is a bit unclear.
“There’s no telling who may be reading over our shoulders 500 years from now,” his website explains, a reminder that we’ll be long dead when the smooth, emotionless AI robot mayors of the future unearth the keychains, road maps and bank pens we bury.
Bartonville dug up a brochure on motorhomes.
Frankfort got some old beer cans.
Woodridge found a cartoon of Kools.
That only sounds weird until you hear there’s a time capsule beneath Dearborn Street that contains a VHS copy of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” placed there by the Chicago Historical Society. Steve Jobs once left a computer mouse in a time capsule in Aspen. During the long gut rehab of Tribune Tower, workers located a capsule holding a baseball likely used by the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox.” In 2017, construction workers in New York City stumbled on a time capsule left by the legendary nightclub Danceteria, and among the artifacts included was a set of fake eyelashes donated by Diana Ross.
This August, a time capsule is being buried beneath the city of Oregon, Illinois, near Rockford. Kris Gilbert, treasurer for the area’s Ogle County Historical Society, will drop in tomato seeds, which she likes to plant with her 10-year-old son. She has hopes he will garden in the future.
Carbondale just installed a time capsule to be opened in 100 years. Among the artifacts included: A couple of jars of dirt from the groundbreaking of a new railroad station, vinyl records from a local label, pamphlets on economic development and T-shirts from bars.
“There were so many T-shirts, people in the future will wonder if we didn’t have clothing in our lives,” said Eva Fisher, the public relations officer who steered the time capsule project. “But we like that none of us will be here to see a reaction. There’s a mystery to these things. Will Carbondale even be here in 100 years? Illinois? What will the space where we buried it look like? You can’t know, so you put it out there — like a giant leap of faith.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
