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Hawaii officials have located a time capsule that was entombed in a wall of the state Capitol a half-century ago.
Information on the exact location of the time capsule had been lost, KHON-TV reported.
“We didn’t know where it really was, and upon doing more research, we found out it was in one of the corners of the Capitol behind a plaque,” said state Sen. Brian Taniguchi, who is chairman of the Capitol’s 50th anniversary.
A group spent nearly 30 hours carefully drilling a hole into the building.
There were no instructions for how to remove the capsule, said Adam Jansen, state archivist.
“There were moments of doubt. Once they hit three inches, we were seriously wondering if we were drilling in the right place, because we didn’t know if it was going to be a small capsule,” he said.
After a slow process of removing concrete layers, they removed the 20-pound copper box.
It contains governmental records from when Hawaii was transitioning into a U.S. state, Jansen said. Hawaii became a state in 1959. The downtown Honolulu building opened in 1969.
The public won’t be able to view the items until the anniversary in March.
“It maintained extremely well,” Jansen said, “which is why we have high expectation the contents will be in very good shape.”
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