Wellington ready to bury archive of last century

By Steven Olson
Correspondent

View list of items in Wellington's time capsule

There is something fascinating about putting time in a box and then opening it to let the past leak out into the present.

That's one of the rationales for Wellington's assembly of a time capsule due to be opened in 100 years.

Larry Noel, Wellington's mayor, said the exact date hasn't been set, but a 70-pound stainless-steel box containing numerous documents and items (see adjacent list) will be buried west of the arch marking the site of the old Wellington High School sometime before Halloween.

It's taken a long time to put together this time capsule. Andy Mair, the chairman of the Time Capsule Committee, said it dates back as far as April 2004, when the Wellington Centennial Celebration Committee started preparations for last year's celebration. That's when the idea of a time capsule was first broached.

Mair managed to get the Wellington Alumni Association to contribute $800 for the capsule and for the preservation kit used to protect the materials that go inside the capsule.

"No one else was really interested all that much," said Wayne Sundberg, the committee's historian. "They (the alumni) were the ones who were interested the most. Andy's really a pretty good fund-raiser."

It isn't just a matter of the time one puts into laying the groundwork for a time capsule, it's a matter of assembling one; it's not like popping something into a jar, screwing on the lid and burying it.

"You have these oxygen absorbers that you put in the capsule after you get the contents in to take all the air out," said Janet Reinhold, the owner of Future Packaging & Preservation in Covina, Calif., the company that worked with Wellington.

The capsule Wellington bought from FP&P was stainless steel and the top had to be welded on, which requires a different welding technique than normal welding. "I'm not really sure, but I think it has something to do with low iron content or something," said Dave Shealer of Kuck Mechanic Contractors of Loveland, who welded the cap.

Shealer doesn't know the chemistry all that well, but he isn't a fly-by-nighter, either. He's been welding for 34 years and is qualified to do welding in a nuclear power plant. He said it took him about an hour to finish the job.

Shealer's experience did allow him to answer one troubling question that immediately hits after seeing the welds: "How do you keep the heat from the welder from cooking everything in the box?"

"Well, all that oxygen's taken out of the box and that stuff was on the bottom," Shealer explained.

Then there are considerations like photographs, a common addition to time capsules. With the advent of digital cameras, photographs have become more complicated. "When you used film, it was actually simpler," said Reinhold, who has been in the business for 20 years. "You used fabric paper not RC (resin-coated) and you washed everything a lot before you dried it and it went in. It's not so hard and fast now because you are using digital."

Usually it's a problem with CDs or DVD durability. The coating on the cheaper ones can oxidize over time and data gets lost. This would be no problem in a time capsule where the air is taken out, but the second it's opened and air gets in there. A way around that is to use archival CDs, which are supposed to last 70 years but may last longer since the technology that created them is so new.

Another problem is playing them. Richard Seaworth, who has a family letter in the capsule, envisioned someone from the future holding up a CD and saying, "Oh, I've heard of these things."

A common practice now is for people to put players capable of playing the medium in the capsule. "I think it was in Madison, Wis., " Reinhold said. "They were wanting to put iPods in their capsule."

Sundberg said that when it's buried, the capsule will be beneath a commemorative plaque and in a vault on the west side of the arch near Wellington Junior High School. The town has allocated $8,000 for the vault, plaque and burial, Sundberg said.