Even Pittsburgh's bomb squad can't find missing century-old time capsule

Pittsburgh's search for a 100-year-old time capsule enclosed in the steel skeleton of the City-County Building, Downtown, has hit a stone wall.

Mayor Bill Peduto and his staff hoped to locate the copper box last year for the 200th anniversary of Pittsburgh's incorporation as a city and the building's centennial.

“I'd love to find it,” Peduto said.

They searched nooks and crannies armed with architectural drawings, photographs, a portable X-ray machine and metal detectors. Volunteers from the police bomb squad drilled into two mysterious concrete panels in a balcony on the exterior of City Council's fifth floor chambers and searched with a miniature camera.

Nothing.

“I wouldn't say we've given up, but the bicentennial has passed so the urgency has certainly decreased dramatically,” said James Hill, special assistant to the mayor and the unofficial building historian. “We're still hunting for it, but I'm starting to believe more and more that we were not meant to find these things until we replace the City-County Building.”

News accounts from the 1916 ceremonial installation of building cornerstones seem to support that theory. Allegheny County Judge John Shafer told the crowd he didn't expect the building to last more than 30 years.

It was March 18 and some 3,000 Pittsburghers turned out on a frigid afternoon to witness the dedication. A parade featuring bands, military units and civic organizations stretched from Grant Street to the North Side's Cedar Avenue.

Dignitaries included city, county and federal officials and Pennsylvania Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh.

Mayor Joseph Armstrong and Allegheny County Commissioners President Addison Gumbert officiated over the placement of two identical copper boxes — for the city and county — into brick inclosures specially constructed inside steel columns.

Armstrong's young son, Joseph Jr., placed the city's time capsule.

News accounts say the capsules were on either side of the building's Grant Street entrance — the city's on the south side and the county's on the north — and giant slabs of granite were lifted by block and tackle and cemented into place.

But reporters didn't pinpoint the location, and city officials can only speculate 100 years later on what they meant by “entrance.”

Could it be the fifth-story balcony over the building entrance with its two mysterious panels, the building's front doors, or two large pillars on either side of a statue of former Mayor Richard Caliguiri.

John Chapman, the city's special events coordinator, is betting on the latter. He points to a May 4, 1916, photograph of building construction as evidence.

Taken less than two months after the building dedication, the photograph shows that the Grant Street side lacks stone except for two locations: the base of both pillars.

“That's the only place they can be,” Chapman said. “It's concrete evidence.”

But to confirm, the city would have to tear off two stone planters installed years after the building opened in December 1917. Some city workers think they can access the pillars from the basement, but Hill said it would be a monumental undertaking.

“Mayor Armstrong didn't make it very easy on us,” he said.

Bob Bauder is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-765-2312, bbauder@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobbauder.