The Solar Eclipse Time Capsules of Small Town America

Food items and time capsules aren’t necessarily a match made in heaven, but for their 2024 solar eclipse time capsule, the Firelands Historical Society in Norwalk, Ohio, couldn’t resist the wordplay of including a Moon Pie.

Sealed and tucked away in an undisclosed area of Ohio’s oldest museum, the capsule has two perishable items. “There is a Moon Pie, and also a bag of special edition Eclipse Chipse created by a local company,” says Historical Society member Anne Day.

“The Moon Pie will probably be like a rock in 75 years,” when the capsule is opened at Norwalk’s next solar eclipse in 2099, says Day. “But our museum has a piece of hardtack from the Civil War, so we figured, why not?”

These items weren’t the centerpiece of the Firelands area’s time capsule though—that distinction goes to a world map marked with the hometowns of people who flocked to Norwalk from around the world (Australia, Norway, and Finland, to name a few) to witness totality. And Norwalk wasn’t alone: On April 8, 2024, as the moon obscured the sun, many towns and organizations in the eclipse’s path marked the event with eclipse time capsules.

“It’s a bit shocking to realize that we won’t be in the path of totality again until 2343—none of us will be around the next time a total eclipse comes through our part of the state,” says Joe LePage, community director in Lebanon, Indiana.

“It’s one of those things that has galvanized our community and rallied us together. It’s created a collaborative spirit that we’ve enjoyed.”

On April 8, 2024, the items in Lebanon’s medium-sized time capsule ranged from “low-hanging fruit,” as LePage puts it—yearbooks, photographs, newspaper clippings—to more eclectic ideas.

“I was out with a member of the Humane Society, and they suggested putting in a rabies vaccine,” says LePage. “They’re hoping to eradicate rabies by the time the capsule is opened.”

Lebanon’s capsule also included some of the town’s eclipse marketing materials featuring the catchphrase, “Get Mooned In Boone.” “We had the decorative banners that we hung around town and we put a couple of those in there,” says LePage.

Other items in Lebanon’s capsule included a silver dollar, already a relic of circulating U.S. currency, and homemade liquor from the Boone County Jail Distillery, a renovated former jail rumored to be haunted by a former inmate and featuring sipping booths with intact prison bars.

At another time capsule event held at Bregg Winery in Norfolk, New York, children came to be photographed with their favorite pets. The portraits were added to the time capsule, which will be opened in March 2074. The event, which also featured face painting, costumed characters, hot dogs, cotton candy, and a pet care information table, was aimed at children intentionally, says winery owner Martin Bregg.

“I wanted to bring kids in because the adults will all be gone in 50 years, but the kids may remember this,” says Bregg. “When it’s reopened, they’ll have something to remember it by.”

Bregg also put the children’s photographs in envelopes and asked them to address the envelopes to a friend or acquaintance likely to be alive in 50 years. When the capsule is opened, the envelopes will be mailed.

“I put Forever stamps on them,” Bregg says.

Back in Norwalk, Ohio, more than 500 miles away, Day says her community also made a special effort to engage children—the Firelands time capsule included selected pieces of writing from the town’s schoolchildren.

“The kids know, of course, that in 75 years, the third graders will be over 80 years old,” says Day, a longtime educator. “So, when they open it up when they’re 85, they can read what they wrote when they were 10.”

The Firelands capsule included a mashup of contemporary and ancient life. There’s a photo of Firelands Historical Society members posing with an almost 10-foot replica of a giant sloth found nearby, a “Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend” T-shirt, and eclipse glasses. The aforementioned Eclipse Chipse, created by nearby snack company Ballreich’s, was packaged in a special edition black matte bag with metallic accents, featuring the photograph “Total Progression” by astronomer Richard Tresch Fienberg.

While it’s bittersweet to realize that many Norwalk residents won’t live to see the capsule opened, it’s a chance for today’s denizens of the planet to make history, says Day.

“There’s that saying about how a society becomes great when old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit,” says Day. “We will never sit in the shade of this tree, but our descendants will. This is history in the making.”