Century Chest to be opened April 22, 2013

[Praedura]

Found an interesting item in downtownokc.com's newsletter:

What's Up Downtown: by Downtowon Oklahoma City, Inc.

A public event to view the contents of the Century Chest will be held Monday, April 22 at 10 a.m. at
the First Lutheran Church, located at 1300 North Robinson Ave. in downtown Oklahoma City.

The event, featuring the live opening of the chest, guest speakers and refreshments, is free and open
to attendees of all ages, including school groups.

A hundred year old time capsule. Cool.



Put together by the First Lutheran Church

On the same date in 1913, exactly 24 years after the Land Run of 1889, the Ladies Aid Society at the church
buried the container of significant items they called "The Century Chest." They had gathered the items from
many notable Oklahoma families, businesses and professional organizations, and ordered, in writing, to future
church members that the chest would be unearthed April 22, 2013.

What's in it?

There is a book written by the original committee detailing the contents of the chest. According to the list,
the chest includes items such as: original paintings, historical photographs, Native American relics and art,
pottery, poems and musical compositions, a Kodak camera, Oklahoma City newspapers,
a forecast of Oklahoma City in 2013 written by leading professional men, and much more.

That last part -- the forecast of what OKC might be like in a hundered years -- will be fun to read.

[Praedura]

The Oklahoma Historical Society has a page for it:

Century Chest

Including a promo video:



Interesting stuff, but the narrator/reporter in the vid is pushing the hype really hard. He's like a British Geraldo Rivera, lol.

[Praedura]

The video does include some very nice period photos of Oklahoma City. I grabbed a few of them:

[RadicalModerate]

Interesting stuff, but the narrator/reporter in the vid is pushing the hype really hard. He's like a British Geraldo Rivera, lol.

LOL2! Thanks for all of this stuff . . . I love it.
Hope that the Grand Opening doesn't turn out to be a rerun of "Al Capone's Vault" or "The Safe From The Titanic" . . . =)

Is this event going to be televised on something other than the lame local news? Perhaps OETA will get involved?

[Praedura]

LOL2! Thanks for all of this stuff . . . I love it.
Hope that the Grand Opening doesn't turn out to be a rerun of "Al Capone's Vault" or "The Safe From The Titanic" . . . =)

Is this event going to be televised on something other than the lame local news? Perhaps OETA will get involved?

Yeah, definitely interesting.

Well I know we won't get the 'Al Capone Vault' fiasco, because it's guaranteed that there's actually stuff in the chest. However, in a worst case scenario, it might turn out that the container was not air-tight as thought and that moisture and mildew got to the contents and ruined much of it. Hopefully that won't happen.

I think it will be fascinating to see what they pull out.

[Praedura]

Quite a nice story on this here:

Stories of the Ages: Century Chest | News OK nDepths





The chest has already been excavated and the items are being prepared for the public display tomorrow.
Included:

* a phonograph and three voice recordings (by those who helped prepared the chest)

* a 1913 Pioneer Telephone

* a Kodak camera (wonder if it can be made to work?)

Also: numerous photos, clothing, coins, maps, flags, copies of the Daily Oklahoman, Indian tribe documents and paraphenalia.

[Praedura]

Mary Fallin attended the ceremony this morning and posted a pic to her twitter page:

[Praedura]

DowntownOKC has posted a *bunch* of pics of items that were displayed today. Here are some.


People lined up to view the contents



Oklahoma City map



Daily Oklahoman April 22, 1913



Magazine cover



Ladies hat



Dress



Boy's suit



Photo of the pastor in 1913



Box of recorded messages





Graphophone (to play recorded messages)



Telephone



Can of coffee



Wheat and corn



Kodak camera, still in original packing



Indian beaded garter



Braille messages



Oklahoma City High School Course of Study



From one era to another



Old photos



Newspaper page from 1913 annoucing the Century Chest



Close up view showing greeting and poem



Another close up, with a question



Where the Century Chest was stored for 100 years



There's actually many more at the link below.

Source: Century Chest | Facebook

[zookeeper]

That is actually very moving. Those people didn't have a clue as to what life would be like in 2013, but they left us a gift that takes my breath away. Call me a sap but this is really something else. Thank you OKCitians of 1913, thank you.

[ThomPaine]

Awesome! Wish I could have made it down there. Thanks for posting the pics.

(I do wish we still had The Oklahoma News as an option though!)

[onthestrip]

Pretty amazing that everything was in pristine condition. A+ for the creators of this time capsule.

[RadicalModerate]

As always, incredibly beautiful photographs, Praedura. Thank You.

I think that the old-fashioned lady's hat was the most vibrant reminder that life back then wasn't as drab as the limits of photography, back in the day, might lead us to imagine. I also liked the black and white picture of the forward-thinking Pastor (with the book and the telephone) who was at least partially responsible for seeing that these treasures were saved in order that we could see them all these years later.

Thanks Again.

(my grandmother had an old Edison phonograph and some of those record cylinders that still worked. now it resides somewhere in Washington State at my aunt's house. i suppose. =)

[UnFrSaKn]

Wow, just noticed this thread but I knew about the time capsule. I love the old photos!


Looking West on Sheridan (Grand) and Harvey. Baltimore Building on the left (Sheridan & Harvey). Overholser Opera House in the middle. Old County Courthouse in the far background. This view would be standing just to the west of the Colcord looking at Devon Tower.


Looking North from the Culbertson Building at Broadway where the Cox Covention Center is today. If you were up on the roof and looking north. Pioneer Building in the very far background. Dome to the right is the Baptist White Temple. Looking even further back you can see the dome of First Christian Church (Frontline).

[Mel]

The items left in the capsule are in such pristine condition. Wonderful pictures.

[Dustin]

FYI, The Century Chest is trending on Reddit...in a very serious way:

reddit: the front page of the internet

Indeed.

Here is the actual link: Pictures from 100 year time capsule in OKC. : pics

[silvergrove]

Lots of good publicity for Oklahoma City yesterday, look at the album views for the link on Reddit:

[Anonymous.]

I couldn't believe it when I saw this on reddit.

This is very cool. Props to the folks back in 1913 who did this for us.

[Praedura]

Among the various artifacts in the chest, a poster for a July 4 celebration in 1889 has been discovered.

okhistory.org - Century Chest

Only a few months after the land run, they secured land in what is now Bricktown and built a baseball field (interesting!) and a horse track for the festivities. Other events included Indian war dances, sack races, and a gun tournament.

Here's the awesome poster:



All the items recovered so far are now in display at the Oklahoma History Center (by the capitol).

[Praedura]

The city being only a few months old at that point and they are already referring to it as the "Queen City of the Beautiful Oklahoma Country".

And offering reduced railroad rates for travelers to get there. I wonder how far across the country those posters were sent.

[Midtowner]

Weird incantations of the primitive children of the forest... nice.

[RadicalModerate]

And what about the awesome and charming "lurid Flames" . . ? =)
(maybe wayne coyne needs to take notice and consider amending the name of his band)

[grantgeneral78]

This is so cool thanks for sharing this!

[warreng88]

Not if this has been opened yet or not, but did we put something back for 2113? I am curious what we would put in there. An iPhone would be an easy one.

[Snowman]

Unfortunately most tech today would not work one hundred years from now if you just set it in a box to be opened then. I think HDDs have the longest reliable shelf life of storage systems and even that is passed after fifty years.

[UnFrSaKn]

RetroMetroOKC Meeting - Century Chest (October 7 2013) - a set on Flickr