Memorabilia : Capsules-- Many Get Lost in Time

At a recent centennial observance in Corona, workers armed with electric drills, shovels and a metal detector burrowed into the earth and found, much to their surprise, dirt--nothing but lots and lots of dirt.

The Riverside County town thus joined the ranks of dozens of cities--Santa Fe, N.M., Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis, to name a few--that have failed to retrieve buried time capsules over the last couple of decades.

That doesn’t include the state of New Jersey, which lost its bicentennial time capsule before planting it--only to find it a month later in the basement of the state Casino Control Commission.

17 Misplaced

Corona most likely is the individual record holder in the fumbled-capsule category because it has misplaced 17 containers of memorabilia that had been deposited by high school classes dating back to the 1930s.

While one Corona Centennial Committee member half-jokingly offered a $100 reward for the items (“dead or alive”), some townsfolk speculated that the boxes were accidentally carted off and destroyed during previous construction work in the area. If so, Corona is in good company; the same thing happened to San Francisco, which left its capsule in the dump several years ago.

Corona’s loss illustrates the problem inherent in any time capsule, a peculiarly American novelty that first gained popularity during the 1876 centennial: Since the container is usually buried by individuals who won’t be around when it’s due to be unveiled, how will anyone know where to find it? Or when to start looking?

Multiple Transfers

A Times reporter trying to find information about Los Angeles’ bicentennial capsule, for instance, was transferred from the city’s Public Works Department to General Services to the city administrative officer to Building and Safety to the mayor’s office, where a spokesman finally admitted:

“No one seems to know. We called the person who did the p.r. (public relations) for the time capsule and she couldn’t remember where it’s buried.”

A Times investigation of old newspaper clippings subsequently determined that the Griffith Park Observatory is the home of the capsule. Just in the nick of time, too. It’s due to be opened in 91 years.

Another cylinder lies beneath the 10-year-old Triforium music box downtown, but no one seems to know when it is supposed to be raised. But, if it ever is, it’s bound to intrigue future generations with such treasures as the 1976-77 proposed city budget and biographies of the Los Angeles City Council members of that era.

James Kusterer Jr., a Sedalia, Colo., chemical engineer, believes he could relieve the time-capsule anxiety of such cities as Corona and Los Angeles.

Kusterer, a former consultant to the Library of Congress, not only produces specially built metal containers at prices ranging from $1,000 to $1,800, he also logs their locations and dates of unveiling.

“I have a list of 440 capsules with the exact map coordinates where they can be found,” said Kusterer, whose recent clients include the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“They (the coordinates) are in bank trusts, which are set up so that they expire when the capsule is scheduled to be opened,” Kusterer explained. “Then those banks will inform some ranking officer in the town, such as the mayor, assuming that the banks are still in business.”

Even if the banks are still banking, Kusterer admits that he will have departed the scene before anyone can determine whether his system works.

“Oh, well,” he said with a laugh. “At least I don’t have to worry about repeat business.”

Kusterer first realized there was a need for a capsule index when he went to work for the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, which was planning the nation’s 200th birthday celebration.

5,000 Requests

Almost 5,000 cities asked the bicentennial group if it knew of any time capsules in their backyards and, if so, their whereabouts. No such record could be found, and only 1,846 of the cities were successful in uncovering them, Kusterer said.

One happy ending occurred later in Long Beach during demolition of its old YMCA building in 1980. A local banker who had attended the structure’s original dedication helped find a 59-year-old copper box embedded in a cornerstone.

Among the contents was a message from one T. E. Neff, who had supplied the capsule. It said: “When this box is opened, please pay T. E. Neff $5.” (The YMCA located Neff’s heirs and duly forked over the money.)

Longmeadow, Mass., had no trouble finding its time capsule, either. The container was dug up at the demand of irate Polish-Americans three days after its burial after the disclosure that its cargo included a book of Polish jokes.

Kusterer estimates that there may be as many as 3,000 other time capsules in the United States, about 60% of which will never be found.

Just how concerned Americans should be about these lost-in-earth items is, of course, another question.

Kusterer admits that their value may lie less in what they hold than in what they say about the “storage ability of current-day materials such as plastics, paper, videotapes, audiotapes, microfilm.”

Robert Ascher, an anthropologist at Cornell University, points out:

“We leave behind time capsules all the time--a library is one. So are fossils, trash, wastes. A deliberate time capsule is somewhat egotistical and self-aggrandizing. If there were some great hiatus between us and a future civilization, I think the first thing they would throw into the trash can would be a deliberate time capsule.”

Some wouldn’t fit into a trash can.

Harold Davisson of Seward, Neb., buried a new Chevrolet Vega and a Kawasaki motorcycle in a concrete vault under his front yard, along with such items as a Teflon frying pan, a pair of bikini panties and a blue leisure suit. The stuff won’t see daylight until 2025.

Glen and Dorene Settle stored items ranging from a typewriter (remember typewriters?) and a Sears-Roebuck catalogue to a baseball autographed by Willie Mays in an old gold mine they own near Lancaster. Scheduled to be unsealed in 2866--on Kern County’s 1,000th anniversary--it’s listed as the world’s largest time capsule in the Guinness Book of World Records. (“In my book that’s not a time capsule,” opined capsule-rival Davisson.)

While time capsules first came into fashion during the nation’s centennial, the custom soon faded, though there were a few memorable exceptions:

- A huge metal cylinder sunk by Westinghouse Electric Corp. at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., for the 1939 World’s Fair and due to be raised in the year 6939. It features a 28,000-page “essay on our times.”

- A 2,000-cubic-foot “Crypt of Civilization” buried under the administration building at Oglethorpe (Ga.) University in 1940 and due up at noon, May 28, 8113 (a Thursday). Its contents include a machine that will crank out 1,500 basic English words, as well as pictures that, it is hoped, define the words.

With the bicentennial, Americans resumed their fascination with capsules, and, if anything, the fad has only increased in popularity.

“I think there’ll be more and more of them in the future, too,” said Ascher of Cornell. “A time capsule’s a nice escape from today’s problems. And there’s a little bit of fantasy or science fiction involved--the fantasy that you’re going to be there when it’s opened.”

Only Americans, it seems, have the urge to emulate man’s best friend and bury things to be dug up later. “Time capsules are very future-oriented and that’s what America’s all about,” Ascher said.

Trumpeting Achievements

The United States, he added, has a relatively short history and it may be that Americans feel more inclined than others to trumpet their achievements.

Kusterer, who theorizes that “we (Americans) are pack rats,” said the time-capsule business has never been better: “Oh, yeah, there’s always someone. The University of Boston’s School of Medicine wants me to do one now.”

“We’re assembling the ingredients,” confirmed Meg Senuta at the medical school, adding that the contents will include normal and abnormal lung sections sandwiched between slides to show the damaging effects of smoking.

Kusterer, who owns 11 time-capsule patents, said special preservative techniques will be used for that one. But the good and bad lungs won’t necessarily be the most unusual items he has packaged.

“A pet food company had me bury some kitty litter for a new facility they opened in Missouri,” he recalled. “In Michigan, a gynecologist had me bury every birth control device you can think of. I imagine they’ll look pretty primitive in 100 years.”

California seems to lead the nation in time capsules.

A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee buried a 50-gallon drum in front of the Coliseum. Designed by Easton Aluminum of Van Nuys, it featured several pieces of equipment, such as an Olympic volleyball with most of its original air, as well as athletes’ predictions about the 2036 Olympics (including the elimination of bathing suits in the swimming events).

Given the state’s seismic history, Kusterer designs his California time capsules differently from those of other states.

“Because of the fear of some kind of catastrophe, such as an earthquake, we usually make a capsule within a capsule to protect it from the collapse of a building,” he said.

Capsules face other types of threats, too.

A new unburied sculpture at the International Tower office building at 9th and Figueroa streets includes a cone that is a time capsule, but no plaque identifies it as such. “I think there’s a concern about vandalism, that if somebody sees the plaque they’ll try to bust through the glass to get at the cone,” said Eugene Sturman, its sculptor,

Doomsday Fears

Contents include Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela’s autographed glove, Mayor Tom Bradley’s blueprint for Los Angeles in the year 2000 and a phone-answering machine.

The time-capsule business has also received a boost lately from heightened doomsday fears.

Kusterer said one Hollywood man wants him to fashion a capsule that can withstand the heat of a nuclear blast.

“I might be able to build one that could take it if it only lasts for a few seconds, but I don’t know,” Kusterer said. “Who does? Frank Lloyd Wright (the architect) said that if there were a nuclear war the only identifiable artifact left would be the vitreous china toilet bowl.”

Research librarian Tom Lutgen aided in the preparation of this article.