Countdown to Time Capsule reveal

With three weeks left before the opening of Batesville’s 50 year time capsule – sealed on July 4, 1976, as part of the nation’s Bicentennial Celebration – interest in the contents and excitement about the reveal is growing.

Mayor Hal Ferrell said photographers and videographers have been documenting everyday life and conditions of the city for preservation in the 2076 time capsule now being prepared. Ferrell and others at City Hall have collected a variety of documents and memorabilia for the box, which will have instructions that it be opened at the next 50 year mark.

The time capsule about to celebrate it’s 50th birthday was handed off in a ceremony captured in a newspaper photo showing Judge Dennis Baker giving the box to Miles Mitchell for safekeeping. Both men, along with most of the other business and civic leaders that made up the Bicentennial committee, have passed away, but the box had a secure succession and has remained unopened for five decades.

Most of the time has been under the watch of retired banker Calvin Flint, who was 22 years old and just beginning his career at Panola County Federal Savings and Loan Association in the building where Renasant Bank now occupies on Highway 6.

“We put the box on a shelf in a vault and kind of forgot about it,” Flint remembers. “Somewhere along the line Mr. Mitchell told me he wasn’t going to be here to see the box opened and he needed someone to make sure it happened.”

“I just stuck in on a shelf and always knew it was there,” Flint said.

What he didn’t know – and never has – is the whereabouts of the key.

“I kept up with the box, I never had the key,” he laughed while checking on the time capsule Tuesday morning. Flint moved to First Security Bank in the latter part of his career, and brought the box to the main branch vault for the last several years of storage.

Mayor Ferrell said he wants to grind the padlock off with a shower of sparks during the July 1 celebration of the 250th birthday of America for added grandeur, an event that city officials hope will be a city wide display of patriotism and national pride.

“Flint’s Hardware, which is proudly known as the oldest continuously operating business in Batesville since 1889 and the oldest hardware store in Mississippi, has stepped forward as a community leader and was the first store to display the 2026 commemorative banner on their historic building at the south end of the public square,” Ferrell said.

“That set the tone for this year’s celebration, and since then Mr. Flint has donated another banner for the other side of the Square,” the mayor said.

Ferrell said anyone wishing to suggest items for inclusion in the 2076 time capsule – including written narratives and reflections imaging how life will be in Batesville in 50 years – should contact him at City Hall in the next two weeks.

As for the contents of the 1976 capsule, Flint and others who were at the original sealing are anxious for the opening. “I remember a couple of things they put in it, but I’m curious how good my memory is,” he said.

“Knowing the sense of humor of some of the names on that original committee (Baker, Shackeroff, Braim, Mitchell, and many others) I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t something kind of shocking in there, but I really don’t know.”

Flint, who is scheduled to be playing live music with partner Casey Lipe, at the celebration, encouraged all citizens to attend the Square event with family and friends. “It was a really big deal in Batesville and all around the state during the Bicentennial and I would like to see that kind of turnout again.”

As for opening the 1976 capsule a few days before the designated July 4 date, Flint said, “If we miss a fifty year goal by a few days, I don’t think any of those men would have minded at all.”