When construction workers at Canalino School cut into a concrete foundation in 2022, they hit something unexpected: a copper box filled with relics from mid-century Carpinteria. It had been buried nearly seven decades earlier, in a ceremony complete with Masonic rites, anointments, and a silver trowel.
The tradition of cornerstone repositories began centuries ago in Europe and continued in the United States. When people commemorated new public buildings, they would leave a piece of themselves behind: sealing records and relics into the construction itself, to remain unopened for the life of the structure. (At least, that was the plan.) Santa Barbara’s First Congregational Church buried a cornerstone repository in 1869, which was opened after the church burned down in 1928.
In Carpinteria, newspapers indicate that cornerstone repositories were placed in three schools: Carpinteria High School on Carpinteria Avenue (now Carpinteria Middle School), Main School on Eighth Street (now the Carpinteria Children’s Project), and Canalino School on Linden Avenue. The high school and Main School repositories are still believed to be buried and sealed…