SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writer
08/15/2004
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A19 of News
A crane hoists a Plymouth Belvedere into a time capsule on the Tulsa County Courthouse lawn in June 1957.
Click on a thumbnail above to view photos.
Residents who saw a ’57 Plymouth Belvedere buried nearly 50 years ago are eager for its unearthing during the state Centennial celebrations.
A time capsule containing a ’57 Plymouth Belvedere with a bottle of tranquilizers in the glove box will be unearthed sometime during Oklahoma’s Centennial celebrations in 2007.
The car was buried June 15, 1957, on the Tulsa County courthouse lawn as part of Tulsarama celebrations during the state’s semicentennial.
According to the original plan for the time capsule, the person or his or her heirs who guessed closest to Tulsa’s population in 2007, wins the car and its many contents. The Chamber of Commerce conducted the contest, and the guesses are recorded on microfilm and buried with the car.
Wayne Carr was there the day the Plymouth was buried. He was the 22-year-old chief clerk of the Election Board. But Carr, 69, said he didn’t enter the contest to win the car.
“I didn’t figure I was going to be alive then,” Carr said. “I was just a mere lad at the time. I had 50 cents in my pocket. My salary was $250 a month.”
No one really knows what condition the car will be in, but great pains were taken to help ensure it received a proper burial. Newsreels of the time show the car being lowered by a crane into a concrete-lined hole before a large crowd. News clippings say the car was wrapped with plastic and chemically treated foil and paper and encased in a steel capsule that was painted and welded shut.
“I was there when they buried it, and I want to be there when they open it,” said Tulsa County Commissioner Bob Dick. “I’ll be excited to see all that was left in there and if it held up over the years.”
When it went into the ground, the Plymouth was thought to be ahead of its time.
“It was a road hog with high fins on the back of it. It was futuristic-looking,” Carr said.
The car is expected to be loaded with mementos. Sunray Mid-Continent Oil Company buried 10 gallons of D-X Boron fuel and five quarts of D-X motor oil — just in case gasoline became obsolete.
Newsreels show men preparing to place a case of Schlitz beer in the car, along with maps and photographs.
But organizers felt it wouldn’t be authentic without the contents of a woman’s purse, and that’s where the pills come in. A woman apparently emptied her bag, which contained a bottle of tranquilizers along with bobby pins, two combs, a compact, cigarettes and matches, an unpaid parking ticket, a tube of lipstick, a package of gum, $2.73 in bills and coins and, of course, a plastic rain hat.
The car also contains a letter from local official Dale Watt to his children; civic records of Tulsa Mayor George E. Norvell and former Mayors George H. Stoner, Dan Patton, Olney F. Flynn and Lee Price, and many other items, including written prayers, newspapers and flags.
A $100 savings bond set up with the former Home Federal Savings and Loan Association was also buried with the car. Officials do not know what it is worth, but believe it would be honored by the Bank of Oklahoma.
The Plymouth was buried on the lawn at the southeast corner of the courthouse, about 100 feet north of the Denver Avenue and Sixth Street intersection. The bronze marker resting on top of the burial site is surrounded by a concrete/rock walkway.