By Erica Thomas, managing editor
PALMERDALE — A 74-year-old time capsule was unearthed at Encounter Church in Palmerdale, on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020.
Pastor Brad Wortham said the capsule was placed in the wall of the former First Baptist Palmerdale Church in 1946. Since then, the building has undergone several renovations, add-ons and name changes.
Inside the time capsule, there was a Bible, some letters and a list of charter members of the church inside. A wall monument sealed the hollow bricks that held the items.
The time capsule was supposed to be opened 50 years later. In fact, a nearby Methodist Church did the same thing and actually opened theirs in 1996. But members of the Baptist Church could not remember where their time capsule was. Over the years, Wortham said he had heard of where the items might be.
“Some of the older people would say, ‘it’s here or it’s there,’ and they were telling you places that were close to where it was but nobody remembered exactly where it was,” said Wortham.
That was until a man who was eight-years-old when the capsule was placed in the wall remembered exactly where to look. He contacted members of the church and gave them directions.
Since the placement of the capsule, concrete steps had been built in the area so the only way to access it was through the crawl space of the church.
Pastor Wortham and former Deacon Chairman James Rogers worked for hours after work Thursday to uncover the church building’s history.
“We had to go in with grinders and cut the marker out of the wall then bust open some of the brick that was behind it to find where they had encapsulated these things inside that wall cavity,” Wortham explained.
The wall monument had the name of the pastor on it. TC Walden was the pastor at First Baptist Palmerdale in 1946. After reading through some of the letters, Wortham found out details about how much money it took to build the church.
“In the letter, it said that they started the church and in the building process they had $2,100,” Wortham said. “When they put the stone in place, they had $550 left. It’s crazy that’s what it cost to build that thing back then,”
Wortham owns the building now and is the pastor of Encounter Church, a non-denominational church. But even he has memories of the old building when it was Palmerdale First Baptist.
“I grew up in Pinson,” Wortham said. “Funny thing is, I went to that church as a teenager. When Palmerdale and Grandview merged into another building, I went back as a youth pastor and then now I have planted in the old building. So, it’s neat to unfold that history.”
The wall monument and other plaques will be placed into a brick column to form a new monument. Wortham wants to display all of the items found in the time capsule in a special-made cabinet.
A lot of the letters were hard to read after years of aging, but Wortham said the old church possibly has copies of the letters in a file. They are going to try and find those copies and add them to the cabinet.
As for the Word of God, Wortham said the Lord’s house has protected it over the past seven decades.
“The Bible is a little brittle, but just looking at it, it looks like it was put in there yesterday,” Wortham said. “It is in perfect condition.”
Church leaders have decided to put together a new time capsule and place it to be opened 50 years from now and hopefully continue a tradition for generations to come.
Encounter Church is located at the corner of Highway 75 and Miles Springs Road, in Palmerdale. Church services are every Sunday at 10 a.m.