By Bonnie Culverhouse
The year was 1976. What was popular then?
- Popular Films: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. All the President’s Men. The Omen. Taxi Driver. The Outlaw Josey Wales. …
- Popular Musicians and songs: Bay City Rollers. Barry Manilow. Diana Ross. Paul Simon. The Four Seasons. …
- Popular TV Programs: The Six Million Dollar Man. Kojak. The Jeffersons. All in the Family.
In 1976, the Minden South Webster Chamber of Commerce buried a time capsule that was supposed to stay in the ground until 2076, but progress had another plan.
“We were digging a place to put the bricks beside Jacqueline Park’s gazebo, and uncovered the time capsule,” Minden Mayor Terry Gardner said Tuesday. “There was a time capsule in a post on the same site. It was vandalized and removed, so we thought that was it. Then, when they were digging today, we found another one.”
Boots on the Boulevard, a community task force designed to beautify the area before Spring events bring visitors to the area, is selling bricks to go in the spot on the south side of the gazebo.
CW&W Contractors in Sibley was excavating a spot for the concrete forms Tuesday morning when they hit an unexpected slab.
So, they kept digging until around seven to eight feet later, they unearthed what … well, they weren’t sure.
“It’s either a time capsule or a bomb,” said Bobby Taylor with CW&W.
The plastic outer layer of the capsule was encased in concrete and located beneath the slab.
“The mayor called me to come look at it to see if I could identify it,” said Col. Carl Thompson. “It does look like a bomb.”
When workers released the valve on the end, it emitted a hissing noise as if it was sealed with nitrogen. It took more than an hour to get the capsule out of the ground and another half hour to rid it of a second concrete casing.
Inside was an aluminum capsule wrapped in an American flag. Once all the bolts were removed, workers found a treasure trove of items from the year it was buried, including a Bible belonging to Larry Reed.
A savings account book from Minden Building & Loan showed $50 in it from former Mayor Tom Colton. According to a newspaper article published at that time, the account was projected to be worth more than $51,000 if the capsule had stayed buried for 100 years.
Photographs, maps and a number of other items were also removed.
The capsule, its items and the flag were taken to the Dorcheat Historical Museum for cataloguing and display.
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