As Elkhart marks 150 years as a city, event planners hoped to get a peek back at its history by cracking open a time capsule from 1958.

But once they decided to dig it up, they realized they didn't know where it was buried.

Nearly everyone on the sesquicentennial planning committee had seen the marker before.

"Everyone assumed it was over at Lundquist (Bicentennial) Park... Where there is a time capsule," said Mary Jo Weyrick a member of the committee, who is also the Elkhart City Council's administrative assistant.

But the time capsule in the park isn't the one buried in 1958. It was buried there in 1977, and isn't supposed to be opened until 2027.

So, the search began.

"I started calling the most senior people I could think of, and Paul Thomas started tearing up his museum looking for records that he thought were there," Weyrick said.

Paul Thomas runs the Time Was Museum in Elkhart, and has looked everywhere he can think to look.

"The Elkhart Truth covered that centennial like a blanket and there's no mention anywhere; and of course I have booklets that I went through; and no mention," said Thomas, who was a member of the planning committee this year, as well as for the centennial celebration back in 1958.

But some Elkhart residents say they know where it is; some say they were even there when it was buried!

"One person told me he thought it was buried out in front of city hall. Another person said she didn't come down that day, but says without hesitation that it was buried at the corner of Main and High St. in the sidewalk," Weyrick said.

Weyrick says if the latter is true, they likely won't see the capsule for a while. That section of sidewalk was recently re-done, so they likely wouldn't be allowed to dig through it.

But ultimately the problem is really the same reason you need a time capsule: it's that time makes memories fade.

"People remember so surely, but everyone remembers a different place," Weyrick said, laughing.

But instead of chasing each lead they get, and digging for the capsule all over town, they want to have better information to work with.

"We're not going to start making Swiss cheese out of Elkhart; or running up and down the street with a metal detector. Unless there's a photograph or written proof, we're going under the assumption there is no time capsule," Thomas said.

Thomas says even though he was on the planning committee for the event back in 1958 too, he has no memory of the time capsule.

They did find a newspaper article mentioning getting items together for the capsule, but no mention of whether it was ever buried, or where they planned to bury it.

They've even gone through the minutes of meetings for the 1958 centennial planning committee, and found no mention of the time capsule.

However, they are still asking anyone who may have been at the burial of the time capsule, or would have any information as to where it might be, to contact Weyrick in the City Clerk's office at 522-5272, ext. 351

Either way, they're putting together a new time capsule for this year, and are asking for contributions from the community, for the capsule to be opened in 2058. They planned to re-bury the time capsule from 1958 with the one from 2008.

Weyrick says she's going to make sure there are plenty of records of where it's buried this time.

"We're going to cross-reference the heck out of it," Weyrick said.