Pictured, attendees of the time capsule sealing ceremony are all smiles as the vault is closed for the next 50 years. (Corey Saathoff photo)

The year-long celebration of the Monroe County Bicentennial is nearing its end, but the memories will last for generations to come.

Those serving on the committee formed to help the community celebrate its 200th anniversary made certain of that by collecting time capsules representing all of Monroe County’s municipalities and villages and locking them in a vault, not to be opened until 2066.

The capsules were placed inside the bison statue on the courthouse grounds during a ceremony held Sunday.

“This is really going to be great in 50 years when someone opens it up,” Monroe County Commissioner Delbert Wittenauer said during the ceremony.

The humor in having these time capsules placed inside a large statue of a bison was not lost on Wittenauer.

“I guess that makes it a ‘Bison-tennial,'” Wittenauer joked.

One by one, representatives from Waterloo, Columbia, Valmeyer, Fults, Maeystown and Hecker handed county commissioner Bob Elmore their fully loaded time capsules for safe placement inside the statue.

Included in the capsules are images and souvenirs from the year’s events, flash drives containing videos and files of importance, and much more. The Republic-Times provided a flash drive containing electronic files of every newspaper published during the year.

“Most of the communities included pictures of organizations, with some family pictures as well,” Bicentennial co-chairman Dennis Knobloch told the Republic-Times. “Several of the unique things are a piece of the old steeple on St. John Church at Maeystown from when they replaced the steeple several years ago, and a section of leaded glass from Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Renault when they replaced their windows.”

In a fitting end to the time capsule ceremony, organizers gathered a small group of youngsters in attendance and had them do the honors of closing the door to the vault.

“They’re the ones who will be around to see what’s inside,” Wittenauer said.

Here’s the official text of Knobloch’s speech made during Sunday’s historic time capsule ceremony:

“As we approach the sunset of the Monroe County Bicentennial year, we reflect on a wonderful year of celebration; a year of remembering the past and those responsible for establishing our great county; a year of reminding everyone that we are surrounded by a wealth of history, abundance of natural wonders and great people from Columbia to the north to Fults on the south, from Valmeyer on the west to Hecker on the east, and from historic Maeystown to our county seat of Waterloo in the center of our county — and to all points in between.

A plethora of unique items of interest have been gathered and were hermetically sealed in these disaster-proof containers to be studied by future generations for their education and amusement.

We now entrust these valuable resources to those who will walk in our footsteps. To the bowels of the buffalo, to the belly of the bison, let these items be encapsulated and sealed, to be opened when Monroe County celebrates 250 years of organization during the Year of Our Lord, 2066.”