PREVIOUSLY:

• What’s the Story With That Place? From Eagles Hall to Squires HQ at Eureka’s Lloyd Building
• Deemed Unsafe After Last Week’s Quake, Eureka’s 107-Year-Old Lloyd Building Will be Demolished
• The Lloyd Building is Going to Come Down This Month
• (VIDEO) Demolition of the Lloyd Building is Under Way

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Representatives from the City of Eureka, the Humboldt Historical Society, the Clarke Museum, Cal Poly Humboldt and a handful of other folks gathered at the site of the recently demolished Lloyd Building on Tuesday afternoon to disentomb a piece of local history – a time capsule from more than a century ago. 

The time capsule had been placed in the Lloyd building’s foundation when construction began on the building in August, 1912. The building would house the Eureka Aerie of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and members of the organization held a big ceremony to commemorate the laying of the cornerstone. 

An article published in The Humboldt Times on Aug. 18, 1912 described the event, saying that after a prayer and a performance by a quartet, members of the Eagles placed various articles into a metal box, which was then deposited into the stone. The items included copies of several newspapers, including Times Standard, The Herald, Labor News and The Californian, a small eagle made of redwood burl, a badge, two Eagles’ souvenirs, plus a list of all Eagles members and a list of all city and county officers at the time. 

The capsule and the items inside saw the light for the first time in 111 years as Eureka city staff lifted the badly smashed and dented metal box from the stone. Not too surprisingly, most of the paper items had disintegrated, with only a few recognizable chunks of newspaper remaining. But the medals and  souvenirs were still intact. And even the little burl eagle had mostly survived, though it had suffered a little damage in its tomb. 

Alex Service, Board president of the Humboldt Historical society, told the Outpost that the group and the City are still working to figure out who legally owns the items. Because the Eagles placed them there, the organization might want them. It’s also been suggested that either the Historical Society or the Clarke Museum preserve the pieces and display them for the public to view. Most likely, Service said, the interested parties will come up with some kind of cooperative arrangement, where the Clarke, the Historical Society and Cal Poly Humboldt will all have a chance to display the items temporarily. 

“We’ll all just work together to preserve what can be preserved and display what’s possible to display and to share the history of the building and the organizations that were involved in it,” Service said.