Fifty years from now, when the residents of 2076 pry open the time capsule buried Friday afternoon at the base of M Hill, they will find the usual markers of a city frozen in time: photographs, newspapers, and local artifacts. But the true weight of the ceremony wasn’t just in what was put into the ground — it was in where it was buried, and in the sequence of who stood above it.
Founders Park is not incidental to this story. On February 24, 1876, a group of hardy pioneers made their first camp near a perpendicular sandstone cliff just north of the site, laying out a town square the following day.
William Martin named the settlement Rapid City — “Rapid” for the waterway, and “City” in anticipation of its importance to the Black Hills.
One hundred and fifty years later, almost to the season, the city they founded gathered at that same ground to seal away a piece of itself for the next half century.
A bronze historical marker still standing at the park’s edge captures the spirit of that founding moment. Erected by the Minnelusa Pioneer Association, it closes with words from a pioneer writer of the era: that the names of those founders “will be handed down to posterity while summer clouds shall wrap old Harney’s Brow and Black Hills waters run down to the sea.” On Friday, a new generation made its own bid for posterity — not in sandstone, but in steel and sealed time.
The Time Capsule Ceremony
By early afternoon, the stone pavilion was filled beyond its chairs. Attendees spilled onto the walls and gathered at the edges, drawn to a ceremony that asked them to consider not just where Rapid City is, but where it began.
The gathering opened with the city’s institutional faith, as Pastor Herb Cleveland offered the invocation. Mayor Jason Salamun followed with opening remarks before Darrell Shoemaker took the crowd backward, laying out the historical significance of Founders Park as the cornerstone of Rapid City’s 150-year journey.
But the deepest grounding came next. Quincy Good Star, pastor of Grace City Church, led the Indigenous blessing and cultural honors. His Lakota prayer song, blessing the people and the land, served as a reminder of the enduring spiritual foundation that long precedes the century the capsule measures.
With the past honored and the present established, the ceremony turned toward the future. Councilman Maher delivered the statement of hope for the city’s next half-century, bridging civic vision with the truest representatives of 2076: the youth.
Artist Umaiza Mayameen’s contribution — a careful sketch of the Hunkayapi ceremony sculpture that stands outside the Prairie Edge Trading Post — carries the Lakota theme of “making relatives” forward for another 50 years. Her work waits in the dark alongside pieces from other local youth: Ezra Valdez’s portrait of Mount Rushmore and Jery Ye’s prairie lake landscape.
The Artifacts Rapid City Chose
Those sketches are just a fraction of the more than 30 items sealed inside. The contents read like a careful self-portrait of a city mid-stride — artifacts chosen not just to document but to represent.
A Rush hockey puck and a Post 22 baseball speak to community and sport.
The massive community photo from Main Street Square captures the city’s faces.
Local newspapers preserve the day’s headlines.
A small triceratops toy from City Hall nods to the region’s prehistoric roots.
South Dakota Mines appears in both capsules — a quiet thread of institutional continuity connecting 1976 to 2026.
A wheat penny, a minted 2025 penny, and challenge coins from both Governor Rhoden and Mayor Salamun round out the collection.
And tucked among it all, a personal letter from the mayor — a direct message from one era of leadership to the next.
Preservation Progress
The stakes of preservation were not lost on anyone present.
When Rapid City opened the 1976 time capsule earlier this year, they found the remnants of a city that had tried to do the same thing fifty years prior — an Ellsworth Air Force Base directory, a phone book, a copy of the Journal, a KOTA tape, a municipal directory, and roughly a dozen other artifacts, all waterlogged. Whether any could be salvaged would require professional preservation work.
Friday’s steel capsule represented a city that had learned something from that humbling discovery
As the presentation concluded, Salamun returned for the final dedication. Serving as the literal bridge across a century — having overseen the opening of the 1976 capsule earlier this year and now formally committing its successor to the earth — he sealed the present away for the Rapid City of tomorrow.
When the moment came, City Administrator Leah Braun handed the canister directly to Mayor Salamun. He laughed that he should have worn white gloves for the occasion. Someone nearby quipped that they had his fingerprints now.
A city worker lifted the wooden cover, and Salamun lowered the canister into the earth. It disappeared with a whoosh and a sharp clank of steel — an unassuming sound for a moment meant to outlast time.
Above him stood the same ground where Rapid City’s founders first made camp 150 years ago, and where, on a warm Friday afternoon in May, their city answered them back.
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