Santa Rosa time capsule unveiled in Old Courthouse Square

It was extremely wet and rainy the day a group of prominent citizens packed the iron time capsule that would spend the next five decades in the ground below Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square.

So when civic documents, photographs, maps and an assortment of other artifacts from 1968 were unearthed last month after 50 years below ground, it perhaps should not have come as much of a surprise that they were damp.

Carefully dried out now and ready for perusal, the contents of the vault were unveiled to the public for the first time Saturday, along with memories of that day long ago when well-meaning residents bequeathed something of their present to the future. About 75 people came out to see the artifacts during a ceremony at Old Courthouse Square.

There were letters from President Lyndon Johnson and California Gov. Ronald Reagan congratulating Santa Rosa on its 100th birthday that year, a ?$2 bill and a Kennedy ?50-cent piece, a copy of the city charter and a chamber of commerce brochure.

Then-Mayor Hugh Codding had stumbled upon a wedding reception at a local restaurant and persuaded the bride to give up a table favor - a tulle-wrapped gold ring - for the purpose. Then, at the very last minute, Codding even tossed in his MasterCard, now expired, while inviting others to include their business cards or whatever they might want.

Among those contributing was a 14-year-old boy named Craig Moeller, who threw in a penny.

He was back on Saturday, one of eight people who were also present on the day the time capsule was buried.

Another was City Councilman John Sawyer.

“I was 12,” he said. “I remember being frustrated I didn’t have anything to throw in.”

It was a pivotal, tumultuous year in the United States, a year of unrest and shifting priorities amid the battle for civil rights, a rising anti-war movement, the sexual revolution and free love.

Among the time capsule’s contents was the March 18, 1968 edition of U.S. News & World Report magazine, with headlines regarding the military buildup in Vietnam and an effort to persuade New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to challenge Richard Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination.

Later in the year would come the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, urban riots and violent protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

But what struck Sonoma State University anthropology professor Margaret Purser, who spoke at Saturday’s time capsule event, was the container’s pointed focus on Santa Rosa - including a “key to the city” that, in the dampness, had disintegrated entirely.

The container’s contents “had nothing whatsoever to do with what was going on outside of Santa Rosa, which was interesting,” she said.

But she was intrigued by what the contents reflected about the community, about a third of which was only newly included in the boundaries of the city.

“It was a story of progress, of ‘Look how good we are. Look how new we are,’?” Purser said. “This is a very hopeful, positive story to send to the future.”

The time capsule’s contents will be exhibited for an extended period starting Saturday, at the History Museum of Sonoma County, beginning with a ?1 p.m. reception.

The 50-year-old capsule was one of two buried in 1968. The other won’t be brought above ground for another 50 years, in 2068.

Likewise, this Sept. 8, the city will plant another 100-year-old time capsule, said Pat Fruiht, a longtime city hall staffer and member of the city’s Sesquicentennial Committee. Organizers are still trying to determine what should go inside. Suggestions are being sought.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.