Schools were notorious for putting together time capsules and were very popular in the the 20th century. Majority of things encapsulated were primarily boring things like newspapers of the day, school rosters, calendars, photos, etc. most of which were better preserved in a local library than in a metal container buried in the ground.
My hometown several years ago unearthed a time capsule from the 1940’s that included a car amongst many other things. The car was a massive rust bucket and most everything was a soggy mess of unreadable paper items.
The impetus for many time capsules in the 20th century was the Westinghouse Time Capsule from 1939 Worlds Fair that is not to be opened until 6939. Yes you read that correctly, 5,000 years in the future.
Although not a real time capsule, one of the coolest finds that was time-capsule like was a French apartment that was closed up in 1942 and not re-opened until 2010.
My high school class buried one in 1971, not to be opened for 100 years. If memory serves, we put in an American flag, a class yearbook, a couple of superhero comic books, an issue of Cosmopolitan, an issue of Teen Beat, a broken wristwatch, cherry-flavored Chapstick and an issue of the day’s newspaper.
Not going to be a thrilling find. Of course, the school burned down and they built another at a far distant location, so they may not even remember there is a time capsule.
The high school I graduated from had one, I believe buried when the school first opened in 1962. The year I graduated, some idiots from a different school vandalized ours – which included digging up the capsule – as a Senior prank and the capsule disappeared.
As I was a belated, wannabe hippie I had stolen my brothers Beatles records when he went to boot camp.
I couldn’t part with the albums but I did bury a few 45s he had. And a poetry book I wrote.
Boy he was mad about the 45s. He said “girl those were collectable when I got 'em”
Oops.
It’s due to be dug up in 2050. If by some miracle I’m still alive I’ll be there to get his stupid records and see what a dumb poet I was.
The coolest one I heard of was a school that was installing whiteboards, and removing the old chalkboards in the process, only to find that there were other chalkboards behind them. Apparently, many decades ago and without anyone remembering, the school had put in new chalkboards (apparently) over Thanksgiving break, without even erasing the previous ones. A neat peek into the pedagogy of the past.
When I was in the army, a bunch of us were tasked, for some reason, with building a podium so’s we could more efficiently be lectured at. It was essentially a box on a box, and it was my idea to put a bunch of stuff in the bottom box before it was closed up. I don’t remember what we put in there. That was 50 years ago.