I have to admit during my younger days (When I was in grade and high school) history simply bored me. LOL. Somewhere along the line, I began to appreciate history. As it pertained to my family, and more particularly as it applied to my community. While today we face a cancel culture regarding history, I think we need to be careful not to forget who we are and how we got here. Yes. Some of our history may reflect negatively upon us, but I think it is just as important to see how we have evolved from then to now.

As City Manager for Pekin, I have found myself in a unique position. I will be the third administrator to participate in the unearthing of a time capsule in the City of Pekin. Seeing the history left behind by our previous leaders. I also find myself in a position of leaving something in return for the next leadership of the City of Pekin. This was certainly not something I envisioned when I applied for this role, but I think it is important to leave a lot of information for the future 50 years down the road. Especially since we also have the unique perspective of celebrating our 200th birthday. A lot to ponder right?

This opportunity got me thinking. Where are the items from the 1844 time capsule? What happened to the 1952 time capsule? The hunt was on. With other staff who shared my interest in the history of Pekin, Nic Maquet and Joshua Wray, we set out on a mission to locate the items from those time capsules. Why weren’t they on display somewhere for the community to see?  Maybe they were, but where?  

We began looking for the items. Nic recalled a newspaper article being written about the old city hall on Margaret Street. When the city hall moved to its current location, a local community member had purchased the old city hall. Nic recalled specifically that this individual had found the contents from the time capsules and was photographed by the local newspaper looking at the items. We contacted Jared Olar at the Pekin Public Library and he reached out to Debbie Montgomery and they were a wealth of information regarding the article. In fact, Debbie sent me the article that provided us with information that began the search. Ultimately, to keep the story short, we found the items. They were safely tucked away in our storage in the basement. That is another story in and of itself. Why are we not sharing this information? In the newspaper article with the individual who now possessed the old city hall, his concern was that it was stuff that needed to be on display. I could not agree more. More on that to come.

So now the focus is on the current time capsule buried at City Hall. This capsule is to be opened on July 4, 2024 as part of the celebration of Pekin’s Bicentennial. I am very excited. In consultation with Mr. Olar, we dug up the time capsule on Friday, May 31, 2024. We contemplated this, but in talking with Mr. Olar we wanted to get the time capsule into a controlled environment to allow it time to acclimate to the current conditions. After all, it has been buried for almost 50 years. We will be opening the time capsule on July 4th at 9am at City Hall, 301 Broadway (the old funeral home). We do have a list that was documented and expect to find a letter to the current police chief, a letter to the PCHS athletic director, along with letters to other descendants who we hope to have read the letters aloud to the public. We will be opening the capsule that morning and setting items out for display to the public. They will then be moved to city hall, where we have acquired display cases to set the items out for view. We will also be displaying the other items from the 1800s along with the 1952 time capsule. They deserve to be on public display.

Finally, we also need to be thinking of the future. We will be announcing the setting of the next time capsule to be opened 50 years from now. So, with that being said, if anyone would like to drop an item off to be placed in the next capsule, we will be announcing this soon. This was a moment of pause for me. It is an opportunity for me to speak in the future. When I do the math I most likely will no longer be on this earth. I hope the letter I leave to the future leadership of Pekin will have some impact on how we get to where we are going. It is weird thinking of this, but Pekin will keep on moving as we all eventually exit. So, a lot to think about and an opportunity to leave a message to your family long after one leaves us.