A copper container, about the size of a good fishing tackle box, is lost somewhere in Railroad Park.

Filled with mementos, the time capsule was buried July 3, 1976 with instructions to open it for the country’s tri-centennial celebration. That means area historians have just 60 more years to find it.

For the first two decades underground, the capsule lay beneath a slab with a plaque, marking its thin concrete pad almost flat on the ground.

In the mid-‘90s, Homer Richardson, a member of the Lincoln County Historical and Genealogical Society, discovered the plaque lying askew in the park. He thinks a lawn mower may have hit it and knocked it loose from its spot over the buried capsule.

He alerted someone with the city, telling the worker, “We need to take care of this because if we lose this plaque we won’t know where this thing is buried,” Richardson said.

The plaque’s location is as much of a mystery as the time capsule’s resting spot.

The LCHGS has been trying to solve both mysteries.

“The main concern we have is that we want to be sure that in 2076 that somebody knows there’s a capsule here that they need to open for the tri-centennial” Richardson said.

With a lot of detective work from LCHGS treasurer Sue Dorman, the club has several copies of old newspaper articles and photographs that document the ceremony.

Many of the people in the pictures are deceased. “The ones who are alive don’t remember much,” Richardson said.

However, Richardson and Dorman recently received a break in the case.

They discovered Robin Reid Vaughan, the 1976 Lincoln County Jr. Miss, who tossed out the first shovel full of dirt over the capsule.

Vaughan can be seen in one photo, standing in the shade of a magnolia tree, watching as Charleigh Ford Jr., who was executive director of the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce, and Joe Speights, who was chamber president, lower the box into the hole.

Vaughan was 18 at the time.

“I thought then that I would be here 100 years later to unearth it,” she said, laughing. “I’m just proud I’m here 40 years later.”

She walked through the park Friday with Dorman and Richardson, hoping the jaunt would jog her memory.

She recalls she was wearing a thick-lined dress and pantyhose and was extremely hot so she tried to find shade under the branches of a magnolia tree. “I was about to pass out, so I remember getting in the shade,” she said.

She also remembers standing near the McGrath statue, which was erected in 1922 to honor a Brookhaven businessman and civic leader.

She thinks the time capsule must be buried somewhere between the tree and the statue.

One newspaper clipping Dorman found shows a photo of members of the bicentennial committee standing in front of the statue. The information under the photo says the men are “standing at the site” of the capsule.

The angle of the picture shows windows on the building above a treeline behind the men and the statue, which Richardson believes match the windows above Janie’s Bakery. The trees in the photo are no longer there.

Richardson said he’s talked to a woman who was working at the bakery in 1976 who remembers looking out the door at Janie’s and seeing a big celebration at the park. That would put the ceremony across from the bakery and beside the statue, Richardson said.

They’re concerned the box could be buried under the walkway that was put in a few years ago, he said.

About five months ago, they went out with metal detectors.

After three hours they found 59 cents and a rock.

“We dug that big rock up (thinking it was the capsule) and it’s exactly what we thought, a big rock,” he said.

Now that they’ve pinpointed a smaller area, they’re hoping to find someone with stronger metal detectors to find the copper capsule.

They’d also like to either locate the plaque that marked the spot, or find someone who remembers what was on top of it so they can duplicate it.

So what’s inside this mysterious box?

According to a weathered clipping from a 1976 issue of The Daily Leader, the program was sponsored by the Bicentennial Committee of Brookhaven and Lincoln County, which was chaired by local attorney Owen Roberts.

The contents of the box included a copy of The Daily Leader’s bicentennial edition, a yearbook from every school in the city and county, coin sets and items from each of the banks in Brookhaven, literature from Brookhaven Junior Auxiliary, programs from the Lions Club, Kiwanis Club and Civitan Club, Brookhaven city directory, a telephone book, information from the Lincoln County Extension Service, a member and guest program from the Brookhaven Country Club, a yearbook from the Bertha Johnson Literary and Garden Club, a church program from Bethel AME Church, a resolution from Brookhaven, Lincoln County and the Chamber of Commerce, a city and county brochure, an annual report from the city and county, a copy of the Lincoln Letter, a new residents handbook, a brochure about industry from the Chamber, a brochure about clubs in Bogue Chitto, material from Daughters of the Revolution, Order of the Eastern Star, Homemakers Club and Garden Club, church programs and a certificate for a bicentennial community from Bogue Chitto, a list of all the residents of Ruth and photographs of the community and yearbooks from Whitworth College and Copiah-Lincoln Junior College.

Anyone with information about the location of the time capsule or the plaque is asked to call Dorman at 601-833-7665.