Some thought Santa Fe would celebrate its 400th birthday by opening a time capsule buried in 1960.

But it turns out the capsule never got buried or even filled with memorabilia from the mid-20th century.

Instead, it ended up as a trash can.

The 400th Anniversary Committee has been looking for exactly where the time capsule was buried on the Plaza.

Committee President Maurice Bonal said this week that his mother, Teresa Bonal, 88, recalled the capsule had been buried near the Plaza's northwest corner, while another person told him it was near the "End of the Trail" monument in the southeast corner.

According to 1960 editions of The New Mexican, the time capsule wasn't to be buried on the Plaza at all, but at City Hall — then at 145 Washington Ave., now the Main Library.

The 150-pound steel tube manufactured by Eberline Instruments — which made dosimeters and other radiation-detection gear — was to be filled with "data pertinent to Santa Fe's 350th anniversary celebration," including a book about the city's "oldest old-timers."

Santa Fe was then thought to be founded in 1610. In the 1990s, historians discovered evidence the city was founded in 1607 or earlier.

During the summer of 1960, the 350th anniversary was front-page news in The New Mexican. The June 19, 1960, edition carried a photograph of Lensic Theater owner Nathan Greer handing Mayor Leo Murphy a box of "information which went into the cylinder scheduled to be buried right after the anniversary celebration," said the caption. "The container will be buried in front of the city hall and will be dug up in 50 years."

That was the last mention of the time capsule for nearly four years. A front-page story on June 27, 1960, focused on the celebration's climax the day before, when a representative of Pope John XXIII attended the final performance of a pageant, "Los Siglos de Santa Fe," at Fort Marcy and a banquet at La Fonda hosted by Archbishop Edwin Byrne.

Not until April 9, 1964, did an enterprising reporter figure out that the time capsule was gathering dust in a back room of Durr's Office Machines at 122 E. Marcy St.

"Its only 'mission' now is as a shelf for empty plastic bottles and other useless objects — as useless as the capsule itself," wrote Mack Barly.

Former Mayor Murphy, then state welfare director, told Barly that the time capsule never got filled or buried because he was too busy trying to cover the 350th anniversary's bills.

"Those were days of confusion, days of chaos," he said. "I was more interested in getting some friends to sign a note with me to cover the deficit the celebration ran up than I was in what happened to the capsule. That $250 I personally was in the hole was what stuck in my mind — not the capsule."

Harold Durr, who owned the store, said he wound up with the empty capsule because he was in charge of the special committee that was to gather things to go in it. When the souvenirs of the anniversary failed to materialize, he said, the project was dropped.

"With its top off, the capsule would make an indestructible trash can — and no dog could ever turn it over," the story ends.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.