Kept ‘hushed,’ this NC town’s time capsule didn’t age well — what was inside?

Mud, silt and contaminated water oozed from Mooresville’s 1973 time capsule when workers unearthed the infant-sized lead vault to expand the town hall 18 years ago.

The capsule was buried to great fanfare in 1973 to mark the town’s centennial.

The town 28 miles north of Charlotte originally planned to keep the vault six-feet deep near the flagpole outside the town hall on North Main Street until this year, Mooresville’s 150th birthday.

But after digging the capsule up in 2005, the town quietly stored the vault from public view.

What would be in the vault given the way they were made in the 1970s, with lids that didn’t extend over their edges like they do today?

Liquid tar was used to seal vault lids back then, which also made the glaze-interior time capsule susceptible to rain water and other elements, Mooresville town commissioner Bobby Compton said.

Mooresville Public Library archivist Andy Poore and town leaders knew the grim answer once the vault was dug up in 2005: Only 1% of the capsule’s contents could be saved, the rest had disintegrated or was otherwise ruined.

‘A large mess’ time capsule

At the Mooresville Public Library Friday, Poore described to The Charlotte Observer what he found in the vault.

“It was basically a soup of materials that had just decayed being exposed to the water, to the chemicals of the vault itself, chemicals being washed in by the mud,” he said. ”We basically had a large mess.”

“There were letters, there were books, there were flags, pieces of clothing,” he said. “It was sad to me because I literally would pick up a photograph to see if it was salvageable and within seconds the image would be gone, or what was left of the image was gone. The centennial flag when I picked it up, it just crumbled. It was gone.”

Rust from metal mementos in the vault, including a railroad spike, only worsened the deterioration of paper and other items, Poore said. Only documents at the top of the pile in the vault survived, he said.

“It was literally like a pressure cooker,” he said of the stew of gunk in the vault.

Belk; North Carolina history

Still, Poore carried on, performing what he called “triage” on letters, newspaper pages and other items that seemed salvageable. He delivered the items to a company that restores old documents, HF Group of Browns Summit, north of Greensboro.

The company spent six months restoring the few salvageable items, which are now on display at the library. They include Mooresville Tribune pages with ads for $8.95 dresses at Belk; used cars including a ‘68 Chevy for $1,595 and a ‘66 Mustang for $595; and a “beautiful brick ranch” house for $23,500.

Other photos on the preserved newspaper pages show famed 20th-century sculptor Selma Burke, who was born in Mooresville on Dec. 31, 1900. Her portrait of President Franklin Roosevelt appears on the U.S. dime.

Other saved documents include signatures of members of the Centennial Belles and Brothers of the Brush, among the groups that joined in the 1973 time capsule festivities.

An 8mm film of the 1973 time capsule ceremony plays on a small video screen as part of the library display. Lynn Barnette, the town’s Public Works director at the time, produced at least 500 reels of film chronicling town events with his 8mm camera.

Poore said he and town officials kept the 2005 time capsule unearthing and subsequent preservation effort “a little quiet” over the years.

They did so, he said, “because we wanted to open (the vault) on the 50-year mark” of the capsule burial. “We kind of kept it hushed.”

‘Reliving a memory they liked’

Poore said he found the public’s reaction “quite interesting” when the vault was opened before at least 60 residents outside the library June 3.

“People weren’t upset,” he said. “It was almost like reliving a memory that they liked. They were more ecstatically reliving the time, rather than being upset at what was lost.”

Poore overheard a woman at the event say how she remembered putting something into the vault in 1973, but quipped, “I’m lucky enough to know where my car keys are now.”

At least 20 residents in attendance remembered their parents adding items to the 1973 capsule and brought their kids to the June 3 event, he said.

Sure, a couple of folks were disappointed that documents contributed by their parents had disintegrated, Poore and Compton said. Yet most everyone who attended was glad to see the items that had been saved and preserved, they said.

Saving old time capsule

Compton said it saddened him, too, when he learned most of the items were no more.

He was in high school when the time capsule was buried in 1973, so he couldn’t attend the ceremony back then. Yet he was “very aware of what went on,” he said.

Compton worked at the Mooresville Fire Department starting the year after he graduated high school. He was a firefighter for 14 years and town fire marshal for 17 years, retiring in 2005.

“Right after I retired, they called me asking where the vault was buried,” Compton said, referring to town officials. “I remembered it was 5 feet from the flag pole. So I stepped off heel-to-toe 5 feet and I said, ‘It’s right there.’”

He wished time had better preserved the documents in the capsule.

“However, that’s just part of time,” Compton said. “Over time, some things are salvageable and some just aren’t. I wish all things could have been saved. Some people are disappointed, but it’s just part of it.”

As a commissioner, he also serves as an ex-officio member of the Mooresville Downtown Commission board of directors and liaison to the Mooresville Historic Preservation Commission.

“And all of this, (time capsule included) plays a part in what Mooresville is, what Mooresville was, what Mooresville has become, and the story of the population, then and now,” Compton said.

“Time capsules are a snapshot of history,” he said. “This is a wonderful snapshot of what life was like in Mooresville in 1973. We have videos of what people took and items that people gave.”

Lessons learned

Poore said he considers the 2005 time capsule unearthing a blessing.

“Because, if it had stayed, all of it would have been gone, because of leaking,” he said. “It was still leaking water and sludge.”

The town’s next time capsule will be in a sealed cabinet above ground, Compton said.

“It will be climate-controlled,” Poore said. “The capsule’s going to be metal and sealed, and that’s going to sit inside a nice wood, metal frame, a 6-foot tall cylinder, and it’s going to be solid, solid wood, easily opened, either at the library, the Mooresville Museum or town hall.”

The downtown museum plans to hold a ceremony similar to the one 50 years ago. The capsule is still under construction, and the date of this year’s ceremony is still to be scheduled, Poore said.

“They’ll recreate 1973 and advertise to have people come by, probably here at the library and put things in it,” Compton said. “And everything will be sealed in the metal container. We won’t have to worry about rust, mold, deterioration.”