Jacksonville bicentennial time capsule search shifts back to city hall

Jacksonville’s bicentennial time capsule will not go into the southeast corner of the square after all. Crews found the planned burial spot too close to an electric feed line, and Mayor Andy Ezard said the capsule was heading back to city hall, where the city is now considering leaving it above ground.

The shift came after residents had been invited to Central Park Plaza for a public viewing and burial ceremony tied to Jacksonville’s 200th birthday celebration. The capsule’s contents were scheduled to be on display from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on May 26, with burial planned for 5:30 p.m., but the location problem forced a delay. For a project meant to outlast the bicentennial year, the dispute over where it should live became part of the story itself: not just what Jacksonville preserves, but where it chooses to place its memory.

The capsule is intended to hold letters, memorabilia and other items selected to represent Jacksonville in 2025. That makes the contents more than ceremonial trinkets. They are a snapshot of who gets represented when a city seals its story for the next generation, and whether that story is centered in the downtown square, city hall or some other civic landmark that still feels visible decades from now.

Jacksonville has seen the value of that kind of snapshot before. The city’s 1975 sesquicentennial capsule was opened during the bicentennial year, and the items inside ranged from groovy shoes and a full football uniform to magazines, newspapers, restaurant menus and eight-track tapes. The Jacksonville Area Museum sorted, cleaned, fumigated and de-molded the artifacts before putting them on exhibit, and letters addressed to individuals and families were available for pickup at the Jacksonville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. The capsule also turned up material tied to the Morgan County Historical Society, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Old Main building of the Jacksonville State Hospital.

The bicentennial project also sits inside the city’s longer civic history. Morgan County was established in 1823, and Jacksonville was platted in March 1825 by surveyor Johnston Shelton. The downtown square was laid out on more than 5 acres in the center of a 160-acre tract, a plan that later came to be known as the Four-Block Square. That history gives extra weight to the argument over the capsule’s resting place, because the same downtown core that defined Jacksonville’s original design is still shaping how the city chooses to remember itself.