Photo courtesy of the Village of Cassville: Setting of the time capsule in 1950

The Village of Cassville, Wis., will be hosting a public revealing of the contents of a time capsule recently discovered during the dismantling of the E.J. Stoneman Generating Station. The ceremony will be held at the Riverside Park shelter near the site of the plant on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019. Officials from Dairyland Power Cooperative, DTE Energy Power & Industrial and the Village of Cassville will be present. A short program will begin at 3:30 and light refreshments will be served after.

Dismantling of the plant began in early September. In October, former plant employees shared a photo with the Village showing a copper time capsule set by construction crews on July 1, 1950, behind the cornerstone of the plant. Village President Keevin Williams shared the news with the company overseeing the dismantling project, expecting the capsule to be found within a couple weeks. It took a couple hours.

The plant was dedicated July 14-15, 1951, as the E.J. Stoneman Station, named after Dairyland’s first Board President Earl J. Stoneman, who died in January 1950 during construction of the plant. Dairyland sold the plant in the mid-1990s, but resumed purchasing power from the plant after it was converted to a biomass woodburning unit by DTE Energy in 2010. Due to the age of the plant and associated maintenance costs, E.J. Stoneman Generating Station was officially retired in 2015. DTE Energy Power & Industrial contracted with North American Dismantling Corporation for the demolition of the facility, which is expected to conclude by the end of the year.