Century-old time capsule found at a Utah church evokes memories of a now fleeting Japantown

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A historian's hunch about what might lie hidden within the walls of a Japanese church in Salt Lake City led congregants to uncover a century-old snapshot of a once vibrant Japantown now fighting for survival.

Elders at the 101-year-old Japanese Church of Christ — one of two remaining buildings in the city’s Japantown — drilled through brick, concrete and rebar to extract a metal box from the building’s cornerstone. Its contents tell the stories of early Japanese immigrants to an area now overtaken by urban sprawl.

Community members got their first look at the artifacts over the weekend, pulling from the box hand-sewn flags, Bibles and local newspapers in both English and Japanese, the church's articles of incorporation and a sheet of glitter-trimmed paper with the handwritten names of its Sunday school teachers.

“You see the thoughts, the hopes and the faith of people from a community over 100 years ago. What they hoped for is still continuing to happen in the heart of Salt Lake City," the Rev. Andrew Fleishman said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Japanese-language Bible had been given to founding member Lois Hide Hashimoto by her mother when she left her home country of Japan for the U.S. in the early 1900s. More than a century later, Hashimoto's grandchildren, Joy Douglass and Ann Pos, held her Bible for the first time.

A handwritten inscription reads: “To Lois Hide from her mother when she started to America. 20th June, 1906. ‘The Lord is our strength and refuge.’” Also in the box was an English-language Bible placed in the time capsule by their father, a then-13-year-old Eddie Hashimoto.

Members of the Presbyterian church knew their chapel had been dedicated in the fall of 1924 but did not know the exact date, Nov. 2, until they opened the time capsule. It was discovered when Lorraine Crouse, a third-generation member and former historian at the University of Utah, pointed out that time capsules were popular at the time of the church's construction. A radar scan later confirmed the presence of a trapezoidal box encased in the concrete foundation.

For Lynne Ward, a church elder, seeing the contents evoked childhood memories of walking the streets of a bustling Japantown full of fish markets, hotels, dry cleaners, restaurants and other Japanese-owned businesses. She recalled visiting a market with her mother where the merchant would give her chewy, citrus candies wrapped in edible rice paper that melted in her mouth.

Once 90 businesses strong, Salt Lake City's Japantown formed in the early 1900s when a mining and railroad boom drew thousands of Japanese immigrants to northern Utah. The downtown neighborhood changed dramatically during World War II, when many community leaders were “harassed, detained and sent to internment camps,” according to the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance.

Japantown hung on until the city expanded its massive Salt Palace Convention Center in the 1990s, wiping out most remaining businesses and scattering residents into the suburbs.

Today, all that remains is a couple of street signs, a small Japanese garden and two religious centers — one Presbyterian, one Buddhist — surrounded by sports bars, hotels, the convention center and the home arena for Utah’s professional hockey and basketball teams.

For many church members, the time capsule recalls the history they’re fighting to keep alive as urban development threatens Japantown with extinction. It also documents the resilience of a minority ethnic and faith community in a state where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, is the largest religious group.

The single-story church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, sits in the midst of a planned sports and entertainment district that promises to bring a modern flare to a rapidly growing downtown.

Developers with the Smith Entertainment Group have vowed to be respectful of the church's needs as they build up the surrounding area. But church leaders worry the multibillion-dollar project could drive away what's left of the Japanese community's local history.

Ward said she left the recent time capsule unveiling feeling empowered to show people that the Japanese community is not only a valuable piece of the city’s past, but also its present.

“Our founding members believed that our community would still be around in 100 years to find that time capsule, and we can believe we’ll be around another hundred more," she told the AP, noting members are already brainstorming what they might leave in a time capsule of their own.