While it’s been posted in the Oregonian, Portland is now receiving national attention for its dillema. In 10 days, this city plans to revisit the moment 100 years ago that President Theodore Roosevelt rode into town in a horse-drawn carriage, gave a rousing speech about the great pioneers of the Pacific Northwest and put a copper box into the cornerstone of a towering monument to Lewis and Clark. The president’s great-grandson, Theodore Roosevelt IV, plans to read the same speech, stand on the same hill in what is now Washington Park and open the old box, a time capsule filled with relics of American life in 1903.
The problem? Nobody can find the box. Anywhere. Researchers are looking all over, reading historical documents, and coming up with nothing. And obviously Portland is freaking out about it.