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Tuesday, January 15, 2002
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
Repair work on the Old Main bell tower at Knox College has uncovered a three-decades-old time capsule stashed inside the tower when it was rebuilt in 1969.
The time capsule was discovered late last month, after the tower was removed for repairs.
The contents of the time capsule (shown below) and other historical items relating to the Old Main tower will be on display in Old Main beginning in February. After the repairs are completed, also planned for February, a new time capsule will be placed in the tower. College officials have asked Knox students and employees for suggestions on contents for the new time capsule.
College employees were unaware of the time capsule, a copper envelope containing three photos of the damage from a wind storm in September 1969 and a note written that December by Gene Woolley, a foreman at Galesburg Construction Company who repaired the tower in 1969.
The capsule was discovered late in December 2001 by David Marshall, an employee of Fox Construction Company of Galesburg, which is rebuilding the tower. The capsule was opened by Knox's Maintenance Director, Dan Marty. (Photo of Dan Marty with capsule, below. Download for publication.)
Fred W. Apsey, Jr., of Galesburg, the retired former president of Galesburg Construction, remembers discussing the time capsule with Woolley.
"Gene asked me if he could put a little note in the tower," Apsey said. "I told him he could put in anything he wanted, so long as it wasn't visible from the outside." The 6-by-9-inch copper envelope was nailed to one of the beams inside the tower.
The photographs in the time capsule appear to have been taken by Dale Humphrey, at the time the photographer for the Galesburg Register-Mail.
Woolley, who died in 1977, was a foreman at Galesburg Construction. He is widely remembered as a master carpenter with an interest in the tower's history. "Gene was the type of guy who was aware of the historical significance of the tower and would have thought of doing (a time capsule)," said Robert Lundeen of Galesburg, now retired, who was the general foreman at Galesburg Construction in 1969.
Woolley's son, Lee Woolley, who was seven-years-old when the tower was damaged, remembers his father working on the tower. "One of those great memories I have as a kid is going up on the roof of Old Main with him," said Lee Woolley, a 1985 Knox College graduate who is now a banking executive in Chicago.
Related Pages
Removal of Bell Tower in Dec. 2001
The International Time Capsule Society
| Copper Envelope (Download) | Letter by Gene Woolley of Galesburg Const. (Download) |
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| West Side Old Main (Download) | Photos showing damage to tower (Download) and roof (Download) |
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