What’s in Humboldt’s century-old time capsule?
HUMBOLDT, Kan. — A mystery 100 years in the making was recently solved in Humboldt, Kansas.
“We started trying to get into it last year,” said Amber Wheeler, Superintendent, Humboldt Schools.
Humboldt superintendent Amber Wheeler says despite having newspaper coverage to go off of, this box, a time capsule from 1922, remained elusive for more than a year.
“When they pulled out the little black box it was an excitement for everybody,” said Wheeler.
Wheeler says they knew the capsule was somewhere around the cornerstone of the high school….. but when they pulled the bricks around it last year, they came up empty.
“There wasn’t anybody to ask. One hundred years ago is a long time. There was nobody to ask where they really put it, or how they had put it in there. We had one newspaper article and a whole lot of guesses,” said Wheeler.
This year, they pulled the cornerstone out as part of adding on to the school.
And inside of the cornerstone was the capsule.
“Who knows what’s in there, and how things have survived in the last 100 years,” said Wheeler.
Monday night, they found out.
“What we can see right now is that there is obviously something that was a baseball at one point in time,” said Wheeler.
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“There had already been some news articles in the older Humboldt Unions that said there was a baseball signed by Walter Johnson, a coin and a newspaper,” said Chris Bauer, Humboldt Resident.
Added to that, is a stamp.
Sadly, the baseball didn’t survive the passage of time. But Chris Bauer, who graduated from Humboldt High School in 1970 and spent roughly 20 years on the school board, says that doesn’t make the time capsule any less valuable.
“It’s very important to see our history, to know where we came from, and, you know, it helps to see the future, also,” said Bauer.
Wheeler says now, it’s her turn.
“We hope to replace that box with a new time capsule,” said Wheeler.
But this time, they may do a few things differently.
“Maybe make it a little bit easier to get into that box,” continued Wheeler.
