Jane Stanford, it turns out, still has a few secrets.
When the cornerstone was laid for the Thomas Welton Stanford Library—the first building of the Outer Quad—on November 2, 1898, Jane ceremonially placed inside it a 12-inch-by-6-inch copper box. She hoped its contents would be revealed far in the future and examined for clues about life during the University’s infancy. But she forgot to say when. With no instructions about when the box should be opened, it remained entombed for 103 years, unbeknownst to anybody on campus.
On June 25, construction worker Manuel Astorga found it. He was chipping concrete in what is now Building 160, currently being renovated, when his tool hit something that wasn’t concrete. Thirty minutes later, he extracted Jane Stanford’s forgotten time capsule.
The unornamented box, welded shut and completely intact, was turned over to Stanford archivist Margaret Kimball, who searched Jane Stanford’s official papers and found a description of the box’s contents. But she isn’t telling. Instead, she is planning a special unveiling for the campus community on Founders’ Day next April.
The secret is well guarded—even Kimball’s mother (Dorcas Thille, ’53) doesn’t know it. “She called me one morning to talk about something else and in the middle of the conversation asks, ‘What’s in the box?’” says Kimball, ’80.
Her response? “Sorry, Mom.”
