Rockville's America250 Time Capsule Is in the Ground, and It Stays There Until 2076
Mayor Monique Ashton and three councilmembers turned soil over the capsule during Rocktobierfest on September 26. Inside are Rockville history, memories and messages for future generations, sealed until the nation's 300th anniversary.
Somewhere in Rockville there is a box that nobody alive at its burial is scheduled to open. Rockville's America250 time capsule was buried during Rocktobierfest on September 26, when Mayor Monique Ashton and councilmembers Adam Van Grack, Barry Jackson and Kate Fulton turned soil at the burial, the city recounted in a photo story published November 1. The capsule holds Rockville history, memories and messages for future generations.
The burial was part of the city's Rocktobierfest, the free Bavarian-themed festival in Rockville Town Center that drew thousands of attendees for live music, food, local breweries and shopping. The capsule gives the festival a second, much longer date on the calendar: it is scheduled to be opened in 2076, on the nation's 300th anniversary - fifty years after the America250 year it commemorates.
Time capsules are a wager a city makes on its own future: that there will be a Rockville in 2076 curious about the Rockville of 2026, and that the history, memories and messages sealed this fall will still read as a fair picture of the city that buried them. The city's account of the burial, with its Rocktobierfest photographs, is posted on the city's website.
