LEBANON CITY, Pa. (WHTM) — Even though July Fourth is behind us, America250 celebrations are still happening, as one central Pennsylvania community came together to open a time capsule buried for 50 years.

Plenty of historical artifacts were on display Monday night in Lebanon City Hall as the community came together to take a look at the past. There were letters and even TV guides inside the capsule.

The year was 1976, to be exact; the country was celebrating its bicentennial and Alfred Daubert Jr. had a front-row seat to it all.

“I was the project director for the time capsule back in 1976, so we had basically, I believe it was six people on the committee,” Daubert said. “So I’m the only one that’s still living.”

He was instrumental in the burial of this time capsule.

“I was dumping cement,” he said. “I was intimately involved with it. So there’s a lot of work, but it’s gratifying. But I mean, we had such a good group of people there.”

A spirit that Mayor Sherry Capello is hoping to channel when the city unveils its new time capsule. She says the plan was to use the old capsule, but Mother Nature had something else in mind.

“We discovered that the locking mechanism was damaged,” Capello said. “We ended up having to cut it to get inside it.”

And on Tuesday, the city showcased the contents with Bicentennial pins, an old $2 bill, a wooden nickel, copies of the Declaration of Independence, just to name a few.

The new time capsule will be painted by a local artist, and will be reopened for the country’s tricentennial but what will be inside the new one?

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Mayor Capello says, the city is taking inspiration from the past.

“They had the same ideas like essays from, you know, different ages and, coin sets and things like that,” Capello said. “It was kind of charming and humbling at the same time to know that we had some of the same ideas of things that should be included in time capsule.”

If you have something you think should be included in the city’s new time capsule, contact Mayor Capello’s office. The city and the county’s 250 committee will determine what’ll make the cut.

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