High Point Museum dedicates America250 Guilford time capsule for 2076 reveal

The High Point Museum has become Guilford County’s archive for the next half-century of local memory, with the America250 Guilford County time capsule housed in the High Point Historical Society collections storage area and kept closed until 2076.

The dedication on Saturday, April 18, ran from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 1859 E. Lexington Ave. and was free and open to all ages. The event gave residents a rare chance to see some of the items before they are sealed away at the end of the year, with live music, refreshments and a photo booth adding to a family-oriented program built around the county’s semiquincentennial.

Organizers said the capsule is not being buried. Instead, artifacts are being donated for inclusion, a choice that turns the project into a visible act of curation rather than a hidden ceremonial gesture. The America250 Guilford County Committee is collecting county-specific items from community members, businesses and organizations, and public submissions are being accepted through the end of 2026.

That invitation puts ordinary residents, local institutions and business owners in the position of deciding what future Guilford County will inherit when the capsule opens for America’s 300th anniversary. The question behind the project is as much about representation as remembrance: which objects, stories and names will stand in for the county in 2076, and whose version of local history will be preserved.

The High Point Museum was a fitting site for that decision because it is already dedicated to sharing Greater High Point’s history. Its Historical Park includes the John Haley House, built in 1786, the Hoggatt House from 1801, a working blacksmith shop dating to 1841 and the Little Red Schoolhouse from 1930, all reminders that the city has long treated physical places as evidence of civic memory.

Local coverage of the dedication said the ceremony also included speakers, activities for all ages, reenactors and a dedication of a monument and plaque. Those details underscored the project’s larger purpose: not just to mark an anniversary, but to choose what Guilford County wants future residents to remember when they open the capsule 50 years from now.