The Nebraska State Historical Society Commission and the Nebraska Semi quincentennial Commission selected the items that will represent the state inside America’s time capsule.
The capsule is scheduled to be buried at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on July 4. It won’t be opened again until 2276, in time for the nation's 500th anniversary.
All 50 states, Washington D.C., five U.S. territories, all three branches of government and America 250 partners submitted items for the capsule. Participants had the opportunity to submit a single sheet of paper or items that would fit into a small archival box.
Nebraska chose to fill a box. The commission submitted 22 prints of the state’s landmarks including Chimney Rock, the second and third state capitol buildings, the Crazy Horse Memorial at Fort Robinson, the Omaha Stockyards and Lake McConaughy.
Daryl Bohac, director of the Nebraska State Historical Society and chair of the Nebraska Semi quincentennial Commission, said the prints draw on the late Nebraska storyteller Roger Welsch’s “Postcards from Nebraska” segments, which once aired on CBS News "Sunday Morning."
"We landed on that theme and went into our archives at the Nebraska State Historical Society to find old postcards representing places in Nebraska that could help tell its story," Bohac said.
The box also holds a 2006 commemorative Nebraska quarter featuring Chimney Rock, and a three-coin set of America the Beautiful quarters featuring Homestead National Monument.
Also included is a photo of Vise-Grip locking pliers, one of Nebraska’s best-known inventions.
William Petersen, a Danish immigrant and blacksmith, patented the locking plier design in 1924 after building it in his shop in DeWitt, combining the grip of a pair of pliers with the clamping strength of a vise.
He founded the Petersen Manufacturing Co., which grew to employ hundreds of workers in the small Nebraska town before the vise-grip plant closed in 2008, when production moved overseas.
Commission members had hoped to include an actual four-inch pair of the pliers, Bohac said, but archivists with the Library of Congress rejected the physical tool over preservation concerns.
“They were invented here in Nebraska, and a representation of the innovation that occurred here in Nebraska that enabled people to thrive and prosper,” Bohac said.
The final item placed in the box is a copy of “A Home of Our Hands,” a poem commissioned by the Nebraska Arts Council for the occasion from Jewel Rodgers, Nebraska’s state poet.
Rodgers, an Omaha native and spoken word artist, is Nebraska’s youngest state poet and first Black Nebraska to hold the title.
Contributions from other states and territories included items that showed their local history, culture, and daily life in 2026.
The capsule holds a commemorative flag from the 2026 Rose Parade, student essays on what America means to them, an iPhone 17 Pro Max representing modern innovation, sheet music for “I’d Like to Buy America a Coke” inside a Coca-Cola glass bottle and sport memorabilia from the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and PGA.
The capsule was built and sealed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in collaboration with preservation experts from the Library of Congress and the National Park Service.
It is a 900-pound, precision milled stainless steel cylinder sealed with indium, a soft metal that compresses to close and microscopic gaps. Once buried, a 1,100-pound steel bell jar will cover the vessel to create a protective air pocket meant to keep the contents dry for the next 250 years.