SCARBOROUGH – For years, Scarborough resident Leanne Dehler told her children about the time capsule she and her fourth-grade classmates buried at the McDonald’s on Route 1, when the fast-food franchise opened in 1979.

She could vividly remember standing in the cold as each child was invited to toss a handful of dirt into the hole where the capsule was to be buried, near the flagpole in front of the restaurant.

“I remember it was shortly before Christmas,” she said on Tuesday, adding that the exact year was less clear. “It seems like it was in conjunction with the opening but I don’t know why, if maybe one of the teachers had a connection to someone related to the construction, or what,” she said.

Flash forward to about a month ago when that McDonald’s started to come down, scheduled to be replaced this summer with a new building in a modern design more bistro cafe? and less discount burger barn. Naturally, Dehler started to ask, what would happen to the time capsule?

That question was finally answered May 8 when the long-forgotten artifact was unearthed by construction workers at the site and given to Dehler, seemingly one of the few to remember the time capsule and certainly the only one curious enough to do something about it.

“I brought it up to some of my friends on Facebook that I went to school with,” she said. “A lot of them didn’t remember it at all, others could vaguely recall something about a time capsule at the McDonald’s but, like me, their memory was foggy about exactly when and where it was buried.”

As questions began to circulate, the story grew somehow murkier still. Steve Berg, property manager of the Oak Hill Plaza, said his boss, Gavin Routolo, who sold the lot to McDonald’s, remembered it being buried in 1976. One person called the Current offices in Westbrook, asking to go through 1985 copies of the American Journal, which covered Scarborough at the time, because that’s when he remembered it going in the ground. Others said the capsule was not a project of Dehler’s class at the old Bessey school, located across Route 1 from town hall, but of an eighth-grade class at Wentworth, then the town’s junior high school.

It wasn’t just former students who were at a loss – even teachers from that time had trouble remembering the details.

“I remember something vaguely about it,” said Gorham resident Jane Carlow, then a teacher at the junior high. “People have certainly asked me about it, but the best I’ve been able to do is suggest it was buried in 1976, or share names of some others who might have a better memory of that. The problem is, a lot of those people who would have been involved at the time have passed away.”

Eventually, Dehler took the bull by the horns and paid a visit to the construction site to ask foremen from Massachusetts-based Marceau Construction if they’d be kind enough to keep an eye out for the capsule while work progressed.

Two weeks later, crews, reportedly excited at the prospect of a treasure hunt to liven up their usual duties began to suspect they’d been punk’d.

Then, on May 8, while operating a backhoe, Steve Demers of Chester, N.H., uncovered the prize.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about it,” he said Tuesday with a laugh, referring questions to others on site. “I just found it is all.”

“The guys were really conscientious, they knew we were kind of looking for something, didn’t know where, but always had their eyes open,” said Bruce Wiley, foreman for Naples-based P&K Sand and Gravel, one of Marceau’s many subcontractors.

As work progressed, a parade of other locals stopped by, said Wiley, each offering helpful, though often contradictory, advice of where to look. However, by the time work crews began to dig the new foundation, two weeks after Dehler’s first visit, they had given up the search as “pretty much hopeless,” said Wiley.

“I did actually begin to doubt myself,” said Dehler, “especially because so many friends in my class had no idea we buried a time capsule. When the weren’t able to find it, it made me think, ‘Am I crazy? Am I remembering something that never happened?”

Then, a lucky shot.

“Because of the design, we had to dig a funny jib in the foundation,” Wiley said on Tuesday. “They were putting the forms in the ground and one guy shouted, ‘Hey there’s your time capsule.’

“It looked like an extra-long Pringles can just sticking out of the dirt,” said Wiley. “It was literally sticking out of the bank. We had dug right by it and cut the top off of it.”

Inside, Wiley and his men found reams of construction paper and blue-lined sheets with student writing. However, even before one end got lopped off, the metal canister had sprung a leak.

Dehler, who took possession of the capsule, said she had to dry out the sheets of paper for several days before attempting to pry them apart.

As it turns out, the papers, all dated Dec. 19, 1979, were from a variety of Scarborough schools, with work from students in grades 4-11. The papers include a wide range of efforts, from a few lines to three pages penned by Mary Pearson, now a sergeant with the Scarborough police.

One thoughtful letter is addressed directly to the American hostages at the Iranian embassy, still more than a year from freedom at that time. Another wonders if there will be a need for roads in the 21st century, by which time cars will certainly “float on air.” The student even includes a drawing of a “Star Wars”-styled hovercraft and a speedometer, pegged at an impressive 60 miles per hour.

“Clearly, they did not pick and choose, they just grabbed a couple from each class. I don’t think there was a lot of rhyme or reason to it,” said Dehler, with a laugh, though somewhat saddened, she said, to find that her own contribution had not made the cut.

Dehler has since given a few of the letters back to their owners who remain in town, although some, she said, were flabbergasted to see work they could not remember doing, but that had their own name on it.

As for the rest, Dehler said, her old fourth-grade classmate JoEllen Clive, now a fifth-grade teacher at the Wentworth school, has asked to share the capsule and its remaining contents with her class.

Beyond that, Dehler said, she’s not sure what to do with the capsule. Although some student letters reference a time 50 years in the future and others speak of the year 2020, there is nothing to indicate when the capsule was meant to be opened. And with neither the school, the town, or even McDonald’s having any official record of the capsule, it’s also uncertain what should become of its contents.

Still, Dehler is hoping those who expressed an interest in the capsule will rally to bury a new one, either at the opening of the new McDonald’s, or perhaps the new Wentworth School, now under construction.

“Hopefully, if that happens, we can keep better track of that one,” she said.

Leanne Dehler stands with construction foreman Bruce Wiley and the 1979 time capsule he dug up at the site of the new McDonald’s on Route 1 in Scarborough. Courtesy photo
Leanne Dehler stands with construction foreman Bruce Wiley and the 1979 time capsule he dug up at the site of the new McDonald’s on Route 1 in Scarborough. Courtesy photo
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