Time in a bottle: Hardware Mutual preserved the present and predicted the future 50 years ago.

The year was 1954. Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and Richard M. Nixon was vice president, The United States was home to 163 million people, and many of them were listening to chart toppers such as Frank Sinatra's "Young at Heart," Doris Day's "Secret Love," and "Shake, Rattle and Roll," by Bill Haley and His Comets. Black-and-white television sets were lighting up the living rooms of more and more households. TV screens that year showed Gene Autry still riding the range, Lucille Ball as the star of "I Love Lucy," and Parker as "Davy Crockett," a show so popular it spurred sales of 100 million coonskin caps nationwide.

That same year, field trials were under way for the Salk polio vaccine; the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark school desegregation ruling, Brown vs. the Board of Education; Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature; and Boeing was testing the 707, the first jet-powered transport plane.

It was also the year when an insurance company known as Hardware Mutual, founded by members of the Wisconsin Retail Hardware Association, commemorated its 50th anniversary. Company officials decided to observe the milestone by packing memorabilia into a time capsule, to be opened 50 years later at the company's centennial celebration.

As 1954 rolled along so did the capsule, traveling to many company-sponsored anniversary events throughout the country. At each stop, employees were invited to add items they felt were characteristic of the time.

Back then, Hardware Mutual had an office in the Empire State Building. For a time in New York City, however, the capsule was displayed in the sidewalk showcase window of Alfred M. Best Co., then located on Fulton Street near the heart of New York's insurance district. "Where will you be in 2004?" asked the sign placed in front of the capsule. People strolling by would stop and ponder that question.

Eventually, the capsule returned to company headquarters in Stevens Point, Wis., and was stored in the company's library. Some time later, Hardware Mutual would change its name to Sentry Insurance, a mutual company that sells primarily property and casualty insurance to businesses and individuals.

The Grand Opening

After 50 years, the big moment came on April 1, 2004, as the capsule was opened during Sentry's 100th anniversary celebration at its annual Sales Leaders' Conference in San Francisco. Dale Schuh, Sentry's chairman and chief executive officer, did the honors.

"When they opened it, they found a number of items, including photos of events that took place during the year of their 50th anniversary," said Mary Weller, director of corporate communications. "There were newspapers, company publications and probably most interesting, a collection of predictions by business and civic leaders."

The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce envisioned Los Angeles in 2004 as the interplanetary spaceport for western North America, as well as the atomic fueling station for intercontinental sea and airliners.

Another forecast came from the National Retail Farm Equipment Association, a group that the insurance company had worked with in 1954. The association predicted that mechanical equipment used in 2004 would be atomic powered.

Perhaps these way-out prognostications were inspired by the shape of the capsule itself. To 1954 eyes, it had all the look of a futuristic spacecraft.