Ind. town seeks missing time capsule

ELKHART, Ind., Sept. 11 (UPI) -- City officials in Elkhart, Ind., said they are having difficulty locating a time capsule buried in 1958 and some evidence seems to indicate it never existed.

Officials said a city employee received an e-mail from a man who said he was at the city's centennial celebration in 1958 and claimed a time capsule buried during the ceremony was meant to be opened in 2008, the Elkhart Truth reported Thursday.

However, the city's Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee said it could not determine where the capsule had been buried. Some members suggested Lundquist-Bicentennial Park as the location, but the only time capsule on record in the park was buried in 1977.

Mary Jo Weyrick, the City Council's administrative assistant, said she has combed through all records of the centennial celebration and cannot find any record of the time capsule other than a brief newspaper mention requesting photo clippings for the item.

Paul Thomas, curator of the Time Was Museum and a member of the Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee, said the 1958 capsule may have never been buried.

"Everyone assumed it existed," he said. The centennial "was covered like a blanket, and there was nothing" mentioning the item.

Weyrick said one resident who remembers the centennial celebration said the time capsule was buried on the southwest corner of Main and High streets -- an area the city is unlikely to want to dig up after new sidewalks were recently installed.