There's a big renovation project taking place at the base of the Susquehanna County Courthouse.
The building has been the centerpiece of Montrose since 1854 and now it's getting a new set of blue stone stairs.
But, a 115-year-old discovery was made in the demolition process.
"And the one day, the contractor called and said, 'Hey, we found something," said Alan Hall - (r) Susquehanna County Commissioner.
While digging the crews found a glass jar, "And it was filled with kerosene. So that's what preserved it all was a kerosene in the bottle," said Hall.
Five newspapers, election ballots, and a letter, all from the year 1909, filled the jar.
"So all of this stuff was wet when you found it?" "Yes, we had to let it dry," said Hall.
"We had obviously no idea that that was there. So we did a little research immediately afterward, and discovered, I believe, a newspaper article talking about it, and I think it was mentioned in that article that they just basically, one day, just dug a hole and threw it in," said Judith Herschel, (D) Susquehanna County Commissioner.
Several newspapers from June of 1909 give us a glimpse into what was on the minds of folks in Susquehanna County at the time, everything from dealing with indigestion gossip about a woman's behavior while intoxicated to even one family's posting looking to adopt a 9-year-old son.
Copies of these pages can be found on the county's website by clicking here.
The ballots and letter pages will make their way to the county's historical society.
"Unfortunately, the capsule got broke in the digging process, but we want to do a time capsule and replace it," said David Darrow, (R) Susquehanna County Commissioner.
So commissioners found a proper time capsule container online and are filling it with items to give folks 115 years from now an idea of ours live today with a sample ballot.
"For the presidential election. There are documents from all our departments. They've all written a letter, as Commissioner Herschel said, which will go into the time capsule," explained Hall.
Along with other newspapers, historical journals, trinkets, and, "Cheetos, which never decompose. And I said to Rebecca, I said Should we double bag it? Just in case? Because we don't want the historical documents to be orange when they pull out. But we think that it'll probably last." said Herschel.
This new time capsule will be installed in the courthouse stairs in Montrose later this week.