PORTER COUNTY, Ind. — A time capsule from “The Greatest Generation” was found at the Indiana Dunes National Park.
On the afternoon of Sept. 23, a contractor with Berglund Construction made the discovery inside of a wall at the park’s Good Fellow Lodge — which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
The youth camp for was children of U.S. Steel’s employees and operated until 1976.
As rehabilitation work was underway on the lodge, the contractor discovered a sealed copper box in the foundation of the lodge.
Workers realized it was a time capsule and began to open the heavily oxidized box.
Inside of the time capsule was a piece of folded tar-infused construction paper with the following items; a small silk 48-star American flag, a memorandum, a speech, a deed and newspaper articles.
They included the front page of The Gary Post-Tribune from June 21, 1940.
The headline “French Ponder Truce Terms” was roughly five weeks after Nazi Germany invaded France. The war, which the United States didn’t enter into until Pearl Harbor the next year, dominated the front page.
Part of the memorandum reads as follows.
“On this day, January 18, 1941, at 2:30 P.M., Mr. E. Earl Moore, Vice President in charge of Industrial Relations, Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa., laid in place the last stone forming the foundation wall of the Administration Building at the Gary Works Good Fellow Club Youth Camp and in so doing sealed in the wall the container in which this document and other mementos of the occasion are found.
In the year of our Lord 1940 under the inspiration and guidance of Mr. Moore the Illinois Steel Company Welfare Association, with the sponsorship of the Gary Works Good Fellow Club, acquired the property and initiated the construction of this Youth Camp for the purpose of promoting the health, welfare and happiness of the children of the employees of Carnegie Illinois Steel Company’s Gary Works and of such other children in the community as may be accommodated from time to time by the camp facilities. The building in the wall of which this memorandum is found, is the first permanent building to be erected for the camp.”
Indiana Dunes National Park said they plan on putting the items on display in the near future.