East High Museum Club welcomes two time capsules to its expansive collection
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DENVER — This month, East High School celebrated its 150th anniversary, putting a spotlight on the school’s long history, which is older than the state of Colorado.
But for one group of dedicated students — the members of the East High School Museum Club — learning and preserving their school’s history has been a years-long project.
Museum Club students and school officials opened two recovered time capsules on September 18, following a rededication ceremony on campus. The club members will lead a year-long effort to dedicate a new time capsule for future students to unseal.
“[It’s exciting] being able to just have that connection to students just like us, who 100 years ago were in this building or the other buildings, and being able to look at a first-hand perspective of what they thought would be important to include for future generations,” said Marion Powers, a junior and club co-president.
Some of the items found inside the capsules include an 1871 dance card for a Christmas ball, a homecoming flyer from 1929, a Colorado Journal newspaper from 1872, report cards and school directories.
Next semester, the Museum Club will work on putting together a new time capsule, said Keegan Hoelscher, a senior who joined the club as a freshman during the club’s first year.
Students plan to include a photo book documenting student life in 2025 with help from students in photography class. Aidan Mills, a senior who is co-president of the club, suggested including a district-issued Chromebook to document the virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By exploring the past through the lens of students who came before them, club members find a personal connection to history.
“Seeing how student life and classes were different, 100 years ago or even 50 years ago, I think it just gives a lot of perspective on how life in general was different, but also surprisingly similar in some ways,” Mills said.
Museum Club members are responsible for curating and maintaining the museum housed just beneath East High’s clock tower. The one-room museum chronicles the school’s history through thousands of artifacts, including photographs, yearbooks, sports trophies and vintage cheerleading uniforms.
Although the museum has been open since 1988, students rarely spent time there. To introduce more students to the space, social studies teacher Matthew Fulford began taking his classes to the museum in 2019 for research projects.
A group of students in Fulford’s class founded the Museum Club in 2021 to further expand access to the museum. After the students returned from online learning during the COVID lockdown, they had a strong desire to get away from screens and work with physical materials, Fulford said.
“Museums protect what we have,” said Hoelscher.
“Their job is to make a piece of paper last for 400, 500, thousands of years in perpetuity. So the importance of a museum curating a collection is really just to keep the human story alive,” Hoelscher said.
Going on four years in the club, Hoelscher has no shortage of fun facts about the school. He can tell you the story behind the mural in the library and which members of Earth, Wind & Fire attended East High School.
During his time, experts from History Colorado and CU Denver have taught the dozen or so members of the club how to catalog items and handle artifacts. The students are also working to digitize much of the museum’s collection.
In honor of its 150th anniversary, a facilities team from Denver Public Schools uncovered two time capsules sealed inside an exterior wall of the East High building. Mills and then-co-president Hoelscher attended the extraction of the capsules, one from 1872 and the other from 1881.
East High School traces its origins back to Denver’s first high school in the Arapahoe School, which opened in 1873. A time capsule was placed in its cornerstone at the building’s groundbreaking ceremony. DPS retrieved the box when it sold the building in the 1890s, but didn’t open it.
East High School’s second home, a building dubbed “Old East” on Stout Street, then received its own cornerstone time capsule. DPS officials recovered the box when the building was demolished in 1929, a few years after the current East High School building opened.
The East High School community held a time capsule ceremony in 1929 to open both boxes. After adding new items from the 1920s, the school sealed them back up in 1931.
While the Museum Club will be responsible for finalizing the contents of a new capsule, Powers said they plan to get feedback from students outside the club about what they want to preserve for future generations.
Type of story: News
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.