Where Did the Time Go? Armed With Pickaxes, Escondido Starts Looking

Back in 1938, it was a logical place to put a time capsule: in the cornerstone of the Escondido City Hall, on the occasion of the city’s 50th birthday.

Problem is, the old City Hall grew over the years with the addition of a bunch of new corners and walls. And now, no one is really sure whether they can locate the original cornerstone and the time capsule hidden behind it.

City officials have turned detectives, reviewing old blueprints, interviewing an old-time Escondido resident who witnessed the burying of the capsule, and talking to retired city employees who were around in ’38.

At 10 a.m. today, workers with pickaxes, jackhammers and other tools will start chiseling away at a 2 1/2-foot-thick adobe wall, inside which they hope to find time in a capsule.

“We’re pretty sure we know where it is,” said Dave Sapp of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and one of the workers assigned to finding lost time.

“But it’ll also be a question of getting to it, since it was set in an adobe wall 50 years ago. We’re not sure how the material was encased and what kind of shape it will be in if we do find it.”

The time capsule--suspected to be a cast iron pipe sealed at both ends, as was the practice in those days--is likely to contain an old newspaper, maybe a City Council agenda, probably some photographs and perhaps an avocado with the hope that it will have finally ripened.

If the capsule isn’t discovered today, it is sure to make an appearance eventually. The old City Hall will be demolished later this year to make room for the expansion of the neighboring Palomar Memorial Hospital.

“There are a few rumors circulating around that, in 1960, when an addition was built on to City Hall, the time capsule was relocated,” said Rod Wood, assistant to the city manager. “We have a few ideas where else it might be. We’ll just have to search it out.”

If the capsule is found today, it will be opened today--even if it takes a blowtorch to do so, city officials say.

Wood said officials are ready for any and all contingencies, including the possibility that a cyanide tablet was placed inside the capsule to keep out bugs.

Meanwhile, plans are under way for the sinking of another time capsule beneath the city’s brand-new City Hall.

Gene Ervin, the civic center project manager, said the new capsule will be placed in a 24-inch-diameter plastic pipe 8 feet deep that was buried beneath an outside patio directly below the centerpiece dome of the new facility. The location will be marked with a plaque laid in the patio itself.

The ceremony to bury the new capsule will occur in October, during the celebration of the city’s centennial.

A committee is at work trying to determine what to put in the capsule, Ervin said.