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Time Capsules
1917 capsule index 1928 capsule index

In February 2004, bricks fell from the upper face of the south end of Rolfe’s three-story, brick school building. The state fire marshal ordered that the entire three-story section of the school be evacuated. The three-story building was built in 1917 and had been part of the Pocahontas Area Community School District since the fall of 1990. In the final years of its use, the building housed the PAC middle school. The PAC school board finally decided that the building should be razed. The work began on January 23, 2006, and was completed that winter.
	Workers retrieved two time capsules from the property. One box had been in a carved out section of the cornerstone and most likely had been there since 1917, when the facility was built. The second box had been left by the class of 1928 in a pillar near the sidewalk at the south entrance to the school.
The supervisor of the crew gave the containers directly to Superintendent Joe Kramer of the Pocahontas Area Community School District. On July 8, 2006, as part of the Greater Rolfe Days Celebration, Superintendent Kramer and members of the school board opened the boxes at a public gathering at the Rolfe Community Center. The materials were then left on a temporary arrangement at the Rolfe Public Library; however, the librarians have not been authorized to let patrons have access to the materials. The PAC board has not yet determined the final resting place of the items. Superintendent Kramer gave Helen Gunderson, editor of the RHS web site, both the privilege and responsibility of making digital files of the items in the boxes. She did the work during the week of July 24, 2006, spending many long hours on the project at the Rolfe Community Center. So far, she had copied about 90 percent of the content of the boxes (and that might be the extent of what she accomplishes.) We intend to post much of the material in low resolution files that should be excellent for viewing on a computer screen but are not so good for making prints. We will also give CDs of the files to the PAC school board as well as the Rolfe and Pocahontas libraries.
	Preparing and posting the files will take a lot of time; therefore, we are posting only a few at a time. Please be patient and check back often. Also, let us know if you have questions or suggestions. We have completed posting items from the 1917 box and are now in the process of posting materials from the 1928 box.