Picture the summer of 1975. Gerald Ford was in the White House. Jaws was scaring people out of the water. And in Seward, Nebraska, a man named Harold Davisson was about to do something no one had ever done before.
On July 4 of that year, Davisson sealed a 45-ton concrete vault in the ground. His instructions were simple: do not open it for 50 years.
This past June, they finally did.
The Man Behind It All
Davisson had a personal reason for this unusual project. His daughter, Trish Davisson Johnson, told KLKN-TV that her father worried he would not live to see his four grandchildren grow up. He feared they might never really know him.
So he went to a builder named Dick O’Dell with a hand-drawn pencil sketch and asked one question: “Can you build the world’s largest time capsule?”
O’Dell said yes. According to his widow, Karen, they got to work.
When the vault was sealed in 1975, Guinness World Records recognized it as the largest time capsule in the world. Fifty years later, it still holds that title.
What Was Inside
More than 5,000 items from about 3,000 people were packed into that vault. Pet rocks. A teal suit described by one reporter as “very, very much 1975.” A Kawasaki motorcycle. And sitting under a plastic tarp, a yellow 1975 Chevrolet Vega with a license plate that read “2025.”
The Vega came out with a few rust spots on the hood. Not bad for half a century underground.
Many of the letters people had placed inside survived. The envelopes, though, did not. That means some of those personal notes are now mysteries; no one knows who wrote them or who they were meant for.
Opening Day
Getting into the vault was no quick job. It took three full days. The city eventually brought in a larger company with a bigger drill, and the vault finally came open on June 26, 2025, according to The Drive.
The public got their first look on July 4, 2025, exactly 50 years after it was sealed. Letters were handed out that day. More were displayed on racks inside the House of Davisson so residents could search for anything meant for them.
Not Every Buried Car Was So Lucky
The Seward Vega held up remarkably well. The same cannot be said for every time capsule car from that era.
A Plymouth Belvedere that was buried in a concrete vault in Tulsa, Oklahoma, back in 1957 was not so fortunate. When it was opened 50 years later, crews found nearly 2,000 gallons of standing water waiting inside.
The Seward capsule had a warm-up run of sorts. In 1983, Davisson added a pyramid on top of the main vault. It held a beat-up Toyota Corolla. Crews emptied that pyramid in 2024 as a kind of trial run. Johnson told KLKN-TV that six people spent four to five hours hauling out what she called “all that cruddy stuff.”
Fifty years is a long time to wait. But for the people of Seward (and for anyone who remembers 1975) this one was worth it.
