Chuck Klosterman on Tulsa's Time Capsule

The August 28, 2007 issue of Esquire ran a piece by Chuck Klosterman on the Tulsa time capsule we examined a few weeks back. An excerpt appears below and you can read the entire story here.

In June of 1957, the community of Tulsa buried a Plymouth Belvedere in a downtown concrete bunker beneath the Oklahoma topsoil. The car would act as the public vortex for a time capsule that would be unearthed five decades later. It would also be the grand prize in a stridently futuristic contest: During the summer of its entombment, various local citizens were given the opportunity to guess what the population of Tulsa would be in 2007. Whoever was closest (and was, presumably, still alive) would win the (now classic) car, along with several gallons of gasoline and oil. It appears that people in 1957 weren't positive that gas and oil would still be in use half a century later. This is how optimistic Americans used to be: We used to imagine that cars of the future would probably run on uranium, potato peels, and distilled water.

See also:
Tulsa Time Capsule (1957)

Tulsa Time Capsule (1957)

On June 15, 1957 a Plymouth Belvedere was buried in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The car was to serve as a time capsule which would be opened in 2007. Among other things, it was packed with films, a commemorative plate and gasoline (in case the people of 2007 didn't have any to start the car).


The June 8, 1957 Victoria Advocate (Victoria, Texas) ran an article titled, "Oklahoma Really Whooping It Up For 50th Birthday."

In a steel vault, buried on the lawn before the City's modernistic skyscraper courthouse is a 1957 automobile and many another memento of Oklahoma's 50th year.

"Tulsarama!" visitors filled out cards predicting the city's population in 2007. Closest guess will win the car - 50 years from now - along with a $100 trust fund, plus interest. The money will be paid to the heirs of the guesser if he or she is not alive in the centennial year.

In June of 2007 they dug up the car. It was announced that Raymond Humbertson had, in 1957, submitted the guess (384,743) closest to Tulsa's 2007 population (382,457). Time did not treat the car so well, as evidenced by the photo below.


Mr. Humberston died in 1979. According to an AP story, his closest living heirs are two elderly sisters living in Maryland. It's not clear if they'll receive the trust fund money because according to the Tulsa World, it was "set up with Sooner Federal Savings and Loan Association, which was liquidated in the 1990s."

Be sure to check out the Flickr page of Michael Bates, who has some great photos of the unearthing.

See also:
Lost and Stolen Time Capsules
Year 2000 Time Capsule (1958)
General Dynamics Astronautics Time Capsule (1963)
Broken Time Capsule (1963-1997)