Nappanee, Indiana 1974 Rotary Time Capsule

Nappanee, Indiana 1974 Rotary Time Capsule Items

With the help of the City of Nappanee, the 1974 Rotary Time Capsule was brought to the surface on July 12, 2024 during the Visit Nappanee’s Friday Fest event. It was determined that the best course of action to open the capsule and ensure that the items weren’t damaged was to cut it open by the bottom. After a brief public viewing, the ELC Heritage Collection worked to start the preservation process and prepare the items for quarantine. They used gloves and masks to ensure their safety and each item was placed into an archival bag to begin the process.

Quarantine – The ELC Heritage Collection took steps to give the time capsule items the best care that they could possibly give them. They followed the guidelines put forth by the NEDCC (the Northeast Document Conservation Center) which included time in quarantine and a cold storage facility. Due to not having the means to give that care to the items in-house, the time capsule items were transported to the Elkhart County Historical Museum. The County Museum has a state-of-the-art quarantine facility and gave space to the Heritage Collection to quarantine the items in cold storage for 4 weeks.

Cleaning– Once the items came out of quarantine they were brought back to the ELC Heritage Collection and were thawed out and sorted. The items were then cleaned with a dry sponge, a document cleaner pad, and a soft bristle brush. A vacuum with a HEPA filter was also used to clean up the debris that may have been on the documents. The items were either placed back into an archival plastic or taken out depending on whether the item cleaned up well or not.

Permanent Cold Storage – A Rotarian name badge and Reel to Reel had to be returned to permanent cold storage. The Heritage Collection did in-house testing for what is known as “Vinegar Syndrome”. Due to these items being plastic, they started to deteriorate and expel acidic gases that made them smell like vinegar. The name badge came back as a 3.0 meaning that it had to be returned immediately to cold storage and the reel-to-reel tested between a 1.5 and 2, recommending it to be put into cold storage as well. Video MVP was able to extract the audio from the reel-to-reel for the Heritage Collection.

Keep reading to learn more about a couple items from the time capsule.

Check out the 1974 Time Capsule Items folder to view everything that was found inside or visit the ELC Heritage Collection during normal business hours to see the display!

Frequently Askes Questions

Why are some items in plastic? – They are in plastic because we are unsure if all the environmental agents were successfully cleaned from the items. They are being kept in plastic to protect the item itself and the items around it. 

What are the brown spots on some of the documents?– They used metal paper clips to clip together some of the items. During the 50 years that the items were in the time capsule the metal paper clips rusted and disintegrated. This stained many of the items permanently.

What will happen to the items after they are taken off display? – The items were donated to the ELC Heritage Collection by the Nappanee Rotary Club. The items will stay with the Heritage Collection and once they come off display, they will go into a controlled storage environment to give the items the best care possible. These items will be continuously monitored and tested to ensure they are not going backward in the preservation process. There will also be a way to view these items online. 

Where are the letters? – We had no idea what type of items we would find when we opened the time capsule in July. It had been rumored that it was full of letters to family members to open 50 years later. Upon further investigation of the items only two letters were found and they were addressed to the future Mayor of Nappanee and the Sesquicentennial Committee.