… Time, flowing like a river
Time, beckoning me
Who knows when
We shall meet again, if ever
But time keeps flowing
Like a river to the sea …
‘Til it’s gone forever …
Unless, of course, it’s properly preserved, to counter that line from the 1980 Alan Parsons Project song, “Time.”
Indeed, time does live on in a few obvious and maybe not-so-obvious places around the Roaring Fork Valley in the form of time capsules.
Often just metal boxes or tubes of various shapes and sizes, the capsules are filled with relics and memorabilia from a particular period of time. They’re then placed inside cornerstones, or under a marked floor panel of notable buildings or other structures at the time of construction — to be unearthed decades, or even a century later.
One such time capsule was opened last spring at Crystal River Elementary School in Carbondale (CRES), 29 years after it had been placed within the original north wing of the school in 1996.
It was perhaps a bit earlier than intended for the unveiling, but necessary after the flat metal box had to be removed when the remainder of the CRES building was constructed about 10 years later.
When a former parent inquired about it with then-Principal Aimee Brockman, longtime building custodian Dean Black recalled that the school’s late librarian, Bonnie Fischer, had kept it safe in a storage closet in the library.
School days of the past
The CRES staff decided to have an unveiling, which was probably a good thing because the loosely sealed box had been buried underground and its contents were deteriorating.
Inside, students of today were able to get a glimpse of what daily life was like at the former Carbondale Elementary School (now the Third Street Center) back in the 1980s and early ‘90s.
There were photos of children in some of the classrooms, including that of a popular late teacher, Jerry Pluger, who famously had an old bathtub in his room that served as a reading lounge.
One photo shows a student decorating the time capsule box itself in art class. There was also the American and Colorado state flags that flew outside the school, along with student essays, a 32-cent postal stamp, a Mac user’s guide and compact disc, architectural drawings of what would become CRES, and an April 25, 1996 copy of The Valley Journal, Carbondale’s hometown newspaper at the time.
“Yeah, it brought back memories of a lot of familiar faces,” said Black, who is one of the few school employees who was even around at that time. “It was just ironic that it popped up when it did.”
The contents of the time capsule remain on display in the main hallway case outside the school’s gymnasium.
Elsewhere in Carbondale, a time capsule was placed inside the north entrance cornerstone of Town Hall on Colorado Avenue when the building was dedicated on Sept. 26, 1997 — not to be disturbed until Sept. 26, 2097.
Contained within, according to newspaper accounts from that time, are a Peppino’s Pizza menu, a Mountain Fair guide, a Potato Day poster, a Carbondale newcomers’ guide, a River Valley Ranch commemorative golf ball, a telephone book, a Carbondale Police badge, town government documents, music CDs, a Colorado Rockies baseball schedule, copies of local newspapers and more.
Another time capsule resides in a support column of the Grand Avenue Bridge in Glenwood Springs, placed when it was dedicated in June 2018. And, local sculptor Vaughn Shafer referred in a recent “Everything Under the Sun” interview on KDNK to a collection of 11 mini time capsules contained within the El Jebel roundabout, where his elk sculpture serves as the centerpiece, to be opened in another 45 years.
Time-honored tradition
Time capsules became popular around the turn of the 20th century, during the middle part of that century when a lot of modern buildings were being built, and again around the turn of the 21st century, said Will Grandbois, former board member of the Carbondale Historical Society.
“We’ve benefitted from some of those being opened up in more recent years, but we don’t really have a good inventory for how many more are out there,” he said.
One work in progress for the historical society was inspired when the calendar rolled past Aug. 16, 2023, or 8/16/23, which corresponds with Carbondale’s ZIP code of 81623, Grandbois explained.
The idea was to begin collecting day-to-day artifacts that would really tell the stories of the third decade of the 21st century, to be either kept as a regular display, or possibly sealed up in a locked safe to be opened on Aug. 16, 2123, by whoever the keepers of history are at that time.
“The old-school concept of a time capsule was to place it inside a building, which is cool but kind of impractical,” Grandbois said, noting that a lot of public buildings are torn down and replaced within 100 years.
A safe or traveling display that’s more mobile and can be kept wherever time might take it seemed more logical, he said.
“We’re still working to assemble a good, fairly compact representation of Carbondale in the 2020s that people can look at down the line and understand our times. It’s not only useful for the future, it’s useful for us now to put some thought into who we are, and where we’re going.”
Added Carbondale historian Sue Gray, “I love the time capsule concept, because even if they’re items commonly used today, they won’t be in the future. It’s good for people to see and try to understand that.
“And things change so quickly now,” she said. “Even in 20 years, it seems everything changes.”
Current CRES Principal Kendall Reiley said the time capsule that they opened last year sparked some interest in assembling a new one depicting school life in 2026.
She said some of the things the kids were saying when they opened the capsule were funny to hear.
For instance, there’s a classic No. 2 yellow pencil with an eraser that’s on display, along with a short student essay about this odd writing instrument.
Of course, that same type of pencil is still used today, but it did make some of the students think about what will happen in the future if all the trees that are used to make pencils get cut down, Reiley said.
“I am curious what questions our kids will want to ask kids 30 years from now,” she said. “I know it was fun for me seeing that we have a lot of the same people still around, like Mr. Dean, and other people who keep our school and our community going.”Are you, the reader, aware of any other time capsules buried in our midst? If so, please contact the Carbondale Historical Society via email: info@carbondalehistory.org, or by phone at 970-414-1078, so that they can keep a proper record of where they are and when they are to be opened.
What would you place in a time capsule to capture this day and age? Join the conversation at Mountain Perspectives.