Keystone Restoration Superintendent Lane Thomas, far left, and Vicksburg National Military Park Inspector Larry Carpenter watch as Jerrel Cooper, chief of maintenance for the Vicksburg National Military Park, lifts the time capsule to Masonry Arts stone masons Randall Miller, top left, and Aubrey Ellison atop the Louisiana monument this morning. The capsule was placed behind the Louisiana seal, covered with a 20-pound piece of flat metal and 40,000 pounds of stone.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[8/7/03]]Military park and restoration workers set an updated time capsule back in the Louisiana Monument on Wednesday, replacing one unearthed at the site this summer.

“I feel confident I’ll never see that box again,” said Jerrel Cooper, chief of maintenance for the Vicksburg National Military Park. “Maybe our descendants will.”

The original time capsule placed in the base of the monument by Confederate veterans before the obelisk was erected in 1920 was found water-logged in late June.

The sectioned monument was taken down after lightning damage was found in 1999.

“We’ve gone to pains to make sure if something should happen, the capsule will be in good condition,” said Bill Nichols, park superintendent. “We’re hoping we’ll never see it again but you never know with mother nature and in particular, the forces of nature.”

To ensure water won’t soak the new capsule, items were placed in a sealed stainless steel box that was placed inside another stainless steel box that was welded shut.

“If water gets to it, it’s going to take an act of Congress,” said Lane Thomas, the superintendent of Keystone Restoration, a Florida-based company charged with restoring the monument.

Also, the capsule was placed in the cornerstone of the monument’s base and won’t be underground, as the first one was.

“The modern time capsule is much higher up and in the center of monument,” said park historian Terry Winschel. “It won’t be prone to water seepage. If it’s ever recovered, the items will be in as good of condition as they are today.”

Among the items in the new capsule are those similar to the ones placed 83 years ago. The damaged items from the original time capsule are being freeze-dried at the Mississippi Museum of Natural History in Jackson. Park officials had hoped for the items to be restored and placed in the new capsule, but instead will eventually be on display at the park.

Winschel said items in the new time capsule included five desktop-sized flags representing the city of New Orleans, the Louisiana state flag, the bicentennial flag of the Louisiana purchase, a Confederate states flag and a U.S. flag.

Mississippi and Louisiana coins from 2003 and 2002, several pins, a patch of the park employees uniform, a newsletter from the U.S. Department of Interior, relics from the battlefield and The Vicksburg Post newspaper clippings reporting the damage and restoration of the monument were also put in the box, estimated to weigh about 50 pounds.

Cooper said he expected the restoration of the monument to be near completion in about six weeks after the remaining parts of the monument are erected, a lightning protection system is installed and landscaping around the monument is complete.

Congress created the park in 1899 to preserve as sacred the battlefield where Union and Confederate troops struggled to determine the nation’s future in 1863. Each state that sent soldiers to the fight here has placed a monument or memorial to those soldiers. Louisiana’s is at one of the park’s highest points, close to the point where intense combat took place with soldiers from Illinois and other northern states.