Locals To Load Time Capsule for Year 2062

Posted on: Dec 17th, 2012 | News and Announcements

Dignitaries, school children, historians and a chemical engineer will gather at 10 a.m. Tuesday, December 18 to load a time capsule with artifacts of our moment in history that will be sealed and stored in Government Plaza for the next 50 years. The ceremony date coincides with the 200 year birth date of Mobile County. On hand at the ceremony tomorrow will be representatives of at least nine of the 11 local municipalities, who will be bringing enclosures for the capsule, along with the Mobile County Commissioners. Also attending will be children from local schools to lend a child?s perspective to current history. David Berthaume, a chemical engineer who designed the moisture/waterproof capsule for the celebration, will talk about his role. He comes with impeccable credentials: his father, also a chemical engineer, designed the time capsule buried at Ladd Stadium in 1961 and opened just last year. About 80 percent of its contents survived in good condition. The History Museum of Mobile, which is the keeper of the 1961 artifacts, will bring a display of some of those items. The capsule is intended to be a communication to future generations. ?When this time capsule is opened in the year 2062, the citizens of Mobile will get a glance at life in 2012,? said Mary Atchison, chairperson of History and Education for the non-profit Mobile County Bicentennial Commission. To be enclosed among the artifacts will be a scroll that had made the rounds for signatures throughout Mobile County - many by school children. ?Not everyone will be able to attend 50 years from now, but the children signing the scroll will likely be there to revisit their lives 50 years in the past,? noted Commission president Beverly Cooper. Mobile County was created by proclamation of the governor of what was in 1812 the Mississippi Territory. Mobile County actually predates the creation of the state of Alabama.