If you had to explain Smyrna in 2026 using only the things you could fit inside a box, what would you choose?
Something important, obviously.
Something historic.
Something that perfectly captures who we are at this particular moment in time.
A digital water meter, perhaps?
Okay, maybe that one didn’t immediately come to mind.
But it’s going in.
So is a Rolling Stone magazine tribute to Dolly Parton. A Jonquil City Jog race medal. And a copy of the very magazine you’re holding right now.
Welcome to the wonderfully peculiar business of building a time capsule.
For America’s semiquincentennial, the city is assembling a collection of objects that will spend the next 25 years waiting to introduce the Smyrna of 2026 to the Smyrna of 2051.
“We thought that the time capsule would be a fun community project for the semiquincentennial year,” says Smyrna Museum Manager Jennie Eldredge. “I hope the future residents of Smyrna who open the capsule will enjoy viewing materials from the past, and that it will open up conversations about how the city has changed in the last 25 years.”
Mayor Derek Norton selected Councilman Travis Lindley to chair a committee of city employees and community representatives, who identified local organizations to contribute.
Then came the interesting part: What should go inside?
For the most part, the organizations get to decide for themselves. “They know best how to represent their organizations in material form,” Jennie says.
Items need to survive 25 years, and space is limited. Beyond that, the assignment is wonderfully broad.
“The overarching guideline for submissions is to provide something that represents Smyrna in 2026—the geography, the culture, the people, the businesses and the diversity,” says Smyrna Public Library Director Mary W. Moore. “We are trying our best to get a wide variety of submissions so we capture a full picture.”
The result is wonderfully eclectic.
Councilman Lindley selected the Dolly Parton tribute, which comes with a local connection: Dolly filmed part of the 2012 movie Joyful Noise at the old Howard’s Restaurant on Concord Road.
For Jennie, the magazine raises another question.
“I wonder what celebrities from today may be that icon in 2051?” she says.
Then there’s that digital water meter, submitted by Smyrna’s Public Works Department.
Imagine being a Public Works employee in 2051 and pulling it from the capsule.
Will it look familiar?
Or will it look about as technologically advanced as a rotary phone does today?
“Who knows how advanced water meters will be then?” Jennie wonders.
That may be the best part of a time capsule. We simply don’t know which pieces of our ordinary lives will fascinate people 25 years from now.
A Jonquil City Jog race medal submitted by Support Smyrna will preserve a community tradition. A copy of this issue of Smyrna Vinings Lifestyle will offer a glimpse of the people we were talking about, the places we were going, the things we were celebrating and the stories we thought were worth telling.
Today, they’re simply pieces of life in Smyrna.
Twenty-five years from now, they’ll be history.
Maybe that’s the funny thing about deciding what belongs in a time capsule: you’re being asked to recognize history before it has had time to become history.
Jennie sees that transformation all the time through her work at the Smyrna Museum. Objects, photographs and documents can bridge the distance between generations, reminding us that the people who came before us weren’t simply names in an archive. They were people living ordinary days, making plans, loving their families and building lives.
Circumstances change, Jennie says, but our hopes, dreams and motivations remain surprisingly similar.
And perhaps that is what Smyrna’s time capsule will ultimately preserve.
Not simply what we owned or what technology we used.
Not simply what we read, where we gathered or even which celebrities we loved.
But little clues about who we were.
Twenty-five years from now, someone will open that box and meet us.
Maybe they’ll recognize a little of themselves in us.
And here’s hoping they think we were pretty interesting, too.
SEE YOU IN 2051
What will Smyrna look like when the time capsule is opened 25 years from now?
Jennie Eldredge hopes it will be a city that has managed its growth while holding onto the unique identity that makes Smyrna feel like Smyrna. She also hopes the Smyrna Museum will remain a treasured institution and a good steward of the city’s history.
Mary W. Moore hopes opening the capsule will spark more than nostalgia. She hopes future Smyrnans will want to learn more—exploring the history books and archives at Smyrna Public Library and the collections at the Smyrna Museum.
Twenty-five years will change a lot. Here’s hoping some things still feel wonderfully familiar.