The National WWI Museum Is About to Open Its 100-Year-Old Time Capsule

In 1919, the Liberty Memorial Association—a group of 40 prominent residents in Kansas City, Missouri— raised the modern-day equivalent of $43.9 million to build a monument honoring American soldiers who had perished while fighting in the First World War. On October 16, 2024, that memorial will host the opening of a time capsule that has been lodged within it for a century.

The Liberty Memorial was designed by the New Jersey-born architect and artist Harold Van Buren Magonigle. Similar to other national monuments from the time period, it was built in the Egyptian Revival style, an architectural movement that took inspiration from the visual culture of ancient Egypt (by way of Napoleon). Between two Assyrian sphinxes—one facing eastward to the entrenched battlefields of France, the other westward to the unknown, unwritten future—stands Liberty Memorial Tower, a 217-foot-tall spire. The time capsule was placed in the cornerstone in 1924, before the memorial was opened to the public in 1926.

On October 16, the National World War I Museum and Memorial, which oversees the site, will reveal the contents of the time capsule. Its burial a century ago was accompanied by flights of doves, circling airplanes, and speeches from then-president Calvin Coolidge and other VIPs to serve as a reminder for future generations of the service members’ sacrifice.

The Liberty Memorial time capsule is different from others in that it doesn’t contain contemporary fashions, technologies, or consumer products. Instead—according to a 100-year-old story in the Kansas City Times—there’s a cache of historical documents, ephemera, and other patriotic items. The time capsule reportedly contains objects of special interest to World War I history buffs, such as signed copies of the United States’s declaration of war from 1917 and armistice agreement from 1918, photos of three presidents who took part in the site’s 1921 dedication, flags of U.S. allies, and a copy of The Artilleryman, a history of the 35th division of the National Guard with troops from Missouri and Kansas, written by one Jay M. Lee.

The unveiling of the time capsule will take place at 10:30 a.m. Central Time. If you can’t attend the event in person, you can RSVP to watch a live stream of the ceremony on the National World War I Museum’s website. 

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