Helium Time Columns

The Helium Centennial Time Columns Monument outside the Don Harrington Discovery Center in Amarillo holds time capsules meant to be opened as late as the year 2968.

It was erected in 1968 to mark the 100th anniversary of helium's discovery, first noticed by astronomers in 1868 in spectrographs of the sun. The Texas Historical Commission's marker record says four columns were filled with books, documents and artifacts about life in 1968, sealed in a helium atmosphere, and are to be opened 25, 50, 100 and 1,000 years later. HPPR reported in 2026 that the monument was funded through a mixture of public funds and private donations from people in the local helium industry. Wikipedia credits the design to Peter Muller Munk Associates of Pittsburgh, built with help from U.S. Steel, and describes a six-story stainless steel structure with three capsules forming legs and one upright.