Time capsule removed from cornerstone of Elkhorn’s former Masonic lodge
By Kellen Olshefski
Editor
It’s not everyday someone gets to be the first person to touch, feel and look at something more than 100-years-old; however, when crews pulled a time capsule from Elkhorn’s former Masonic lodge Saturday afternoon, that’s exactly what some had the opportunity to do.
“It was kind of like Christmas morning a little bit for us,” Senior Warden of the Southern Lakes Masonic Lodge No. 12 Daniel Johnson said Monday.
“You walk in there, you find the present and you don’t know what’s inside and you start opening it and looking. That’s really what the atmosphere was like at the time.”
Johnson said members of the Southern Lakes Masonic Lodge No. 12 learned of the time capsule from the lodge’s records, noting the time capsule has been listed in the records to way back when the cornerstone was first laid on Aug. 1 in 1914. Johnson said the fact that something was hidden in the cornerstone of the old lodge isn’t necessarily uncommon for masonic lodges.
“So, we had a pretty good idea something was in there,” he said.
Though the Rock of Jesus church had approached them previously about opening the cornerstone, Johnson said the church had wanted to essentially keep what was in there, something they weren’t interested in. Now, with the old lodge fairly recently being purchased by St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, the building soon to be named the St. Patrick Trinity Center, it finally presented the lodge the opportunity it was looking for.
In an annual fellowship meeting between the masonic lodge and the Knights of Columbus chapter that works out of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Johnson said they were approached with the same offer, but this time, the more they discussed it, the time seemed right.
“We decided we’d try to obviously preserve whatever was in there and re-seal it after we looked at whatever was in there to preserve it for the next generation,” he said.
With this past Saturday marking the 101st anniversary of when the cornerstone was laid, crews pulled out the bricks on the side of the building and reached inside to remove the time capsule.
“From a historical standpoint, time capsules are one of those things that sort of let you walk back in time and learn a little bit about the previous community and the organizations that used to exist,” Johnson said. “It’s a really neat historical thing for sure.”
Though the masons as an organization is a little smaller than it used to be, Johnson said historically it has served as a pretty large part of society and taking a peek inside the time capsule showed the numerous historical figures who were masons, many of which whose names are still of importance in the community, including the Lauderdales and others that “ring a bell when you look at them.”
Overall, Johnson said the contents of the time capsule – a copper box a little smaller than a shoebox, which contained numerous documents including a listing of the different lodge members of the time, coins, several hand-written letters, a copy of the Elkhorn Independent and more – were remarkably well preserved despite being sealed in a cornerstone for 101 years, battered by brutal winter after winter.
With gloved hands, Johnson said they removed the top from the copper box and began to sift through the numerous documents and letters, some multiple pages.
“It’s one of those things where you open it and you don’t know what you’re expecting, we didn’t have anything in the lodge listing what the contents were,” he said.
“It was really fascinating because it was almost like a bottomless pit a little bit. Every time you pulled out a document, you thought that was going to be the last thing and there was another thing below it.”
Johnson said as of right now, the plan is for the time capsule and its contents to remain on display, along with a photo of the cornerstone being laid in 1914, for the next few weeks.
Over that time, the idea is to hopefully make some copies and take several photos of the contents for a historical display at places such as Southern Lakes Masonic Lodge No. 12. Then, Johnson said the groups plan to place the items back in the copper box, along with some items from 2015, and seal it back into the building’s cornerstone.
“The idea simply being that we want our members to know what’s in there, but at the same time, it’d be neat for someone 50 years, or 100 years, to dig back in there and rediscover it,” he said.
“It was definitely one of the most moving events that I’ve ever been part of … the whole day itself was just a really neat experience.”
Johnson said Mark Weseman, who represents Elkhorn’s Knights of Columbus chapter, intends to have the display available to anyone who would like to see it.
For more information on how, where and when to view the contents of the time capsule over the coming weeks, call St. Patrick Catholic Parish at (262) 723-5565.
