Jessup, Plains Twp. and Luzerne borough will open time capsules as part of Independence Day celebrations. They’re the lucky ones. Some other time capsules in the region may have been lost. Others are awaiting their due date.
Like many around the country, the Plains Twp. and Jessup capsules were buried in 1976, which was also Jessup’s centennial.
The Jessup time capsule artifacts will be displayed at the Sunday, July 5, celebration beginning at 2:30 p.m. at Memorial Field. The borough is also collecting new mementos through the end of the year, said council President Gregg Betti.
The Plains Twp. time capsule will be opened on the grounds of the Municipal Building at 10 a.m. on Friday, July 3.
A Scranton Times writer lamented the fate of unburied time capsules in 1984. (COURTESY OF NEWSPAPERS.COM)
Plans for a time capsule stalled in the 1980s, but the proposed contents were listed in a newspaper article. (COURTESY OF NEWSPAPERS.COM)
A newspaper clipping about plans for a time capsule marking the new millennium. (COURTESY OF NEWSPAPERS.COM)
A 1999 Scranton Times-Tribune article asks readers to fill out a survey suggesting items for a time capsule. (COURTESY OF NEWSPAPERS.COM)
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A Scranton Times writer lamented the fate of unburied time capsules in 1984. (COURTESY OF NEWSPAPERS.COM)
The Luzerne capsule will be opened on Saturday, July 4, at the culmination of the Independence Day activities that start at 10 a.m. in Memorial Park on Bennett Street. Mayor Ron Reino doesn’t know what is inside the 25-year-old artifact. “We don’t think it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls,” he said.
Burying or otherwise hiding something has its risks. In an extreme example, three children around the age of 8 or 9 dug up the capsule in Luzerne’s Charles Street Park and stole it in 2007. It was soon recovered. More typical is the battered box on display at the Luzerne County Historical Society Museum. It was buried in Wilkes-Barre in 1922 and opened on schedule in the summer of 1972, not long after the Hurricane Agnes flood. Only the box remains. No one knows what was inside, said Mark J. Riccetti, director of operations and programming. He speculates that the contents may have been damaged in the flood or perhaps given away as part of a celebration.
Lackawanna County mystery and later success
Ahead of the Lackawanna County centennial of 1978, a committee obtained a hollow, 4-foot-high artillery shell for the capsule container and collected some items before running out of money, according to several newspaper articles of the time. There was another attempt for the 1982 centennial of the county courthouse. Organizers gathered documents, phone books and a copy of “That Championship Season” by Pulitzer Prize-winning Scranton author Jason Miller. The 1978 and 1982 capsules may have been combined, said Mary Ann Moran Savakinus, executive director of the Lackawanna Historical Society.
The 1982 time capsule was still lingering in 1999, when a different group was inspired by the upcoming millennium and gathered more items, including letters from schoolchildren. When they learned about the ’80s version, they planned to bury it all together on the courthouse lawn. A solely symbolic ceremony was held on New Year’s Eve. Nothing was buried. “It was January,” said Savakinus, who took part. Savakinus doesn’t know where the capsule is now. Neither does Scranton Tomorrow, which was involved in the project.
Lackawanna County Communications Director Joe D’Arienzo said there are no time capsules in or around the courthouse. There is no visible sign of a time capsule marker on Courthouse Square.
The Lackawanna County commissioners succeeded with a separate effort when they entombed a capsule in the lobby of the first floor of the Lackawanna County Government Center in 2018. It is to be opened in 2118. Students from John F. Kennedy Elementary School wrote notes and drew pictures. Because the building was once the Globe store, old ads from the landmark store were included. Commissioner Laureen Cummings added a copy of The Times-Tribune with a note labeling an editorial about her as “fake news.”
Others
Newspaper files record a Carbondale time capsule buried in 1976, but that was news to Mayor Michele Bannon. She is trying to track it down. To mark its 30th anniversary, the Nanticoke Historical Society buried a time capsule outside its headquarters near the Mill Memorial Library. It will be opened in 2075. An earlier Nanticoke time capsule was lost. Throop has no plans to open its bicentennial time capsule. Goodwill Industries installed a time capsule when it renovated the former North Scranton Junior High School, now known as the Theater at North.
What to know about time capsules
The 250th birthday of the United States is reviving interest in time capsules. That’s a tricky business, said Mark J. Riccetti, director of operations and programming at the Luzerne County Historical Society Museum. He has some warnings and some tips.
Nothing of historic value should be sealed away, he said. Many time capsules are lost or damaged. Even with the best modern conservation techniques, don’t do it. “You can say, ‘Hey, we have this preserved,’ and, ‘You know, we have the world’s last X,’ and there’s something to be said for that,” he said. “But at the same time, if no one’s learning from it, you’re really doing a disservice to the item that way.”
He suggests collecting common items that will eventually be artifacts, such as a cellphone and a Starbucks cup, and keeping the time capsule somewhere safe and close at hand, such as a home safe. “That way, if people were to open it, they could say, ‘Hey, you know, this is what it was like in 2026.’”