In the Spring of 2000, the heavy metal band Metallica sued the music file-sharing service Napster, and the Houston Astros played their first game at the new Enron Field ballpark. Hundreds of miles away in Brentwood, a crowd gathered in front of the John P. Holt Brentwood Library and wondered what the future would bring.
It was a gray April morning, and as the wind messed with everyone’s hair, they shoveled dirt over a small box – the City of Brentwood Time Capsule.
“In 25 years, we’ll all come back out and open it,” the late Regina Smithson, Brentwood mayor at the time, said to reporter Will Jordan of the Franklin Review-Appeal newspaper.
The time capsule was a joint project between the Brentwood Morning Rotary Club and the City of Brentwood. At 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 5, the two organizations will host the Brentwood Millennium Time Capsule Opening Ceremony to reveal what was buried more than 20 years ago. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature refreshments and a viewing of the time capsule’s contents.
“It will be interesting to see what has changed in 25 years,” Preston Bain told the Review-Appeal at the time. He was active in coordinating the time capsule project, and now Bain, vice chair of the Brentwood Planning Commission, said he plans to attend the Oct. 5 opening.
Past Morning Rotary President Larry Boyd attended the 2000 event, and he will be present, along with current president, Rob Auernheimer, at the time capsule ceremony.
According to Jordan’s article, items in the time capsule “included books, photos, and other accounts of people, places, and events in Brentwood.” A plaque now marks the location of the time capsule, next to a red oak planted that day by the Brentwood Tree Board. Around 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 5, shovels will again dig into that patch of earth to reveal what was hidden 25 years ago.
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