Bryan Health opens time capsule to celebrate 100-year anniversary

Harold Lyons was working at Bryan Memorial Hospital in 1987 when a time capsule was closed up and sealed behind a plaque in a brick wall original to the building near 48th and Sumner streets in Lincoln.

And Lyons, a member of Bryan’s maintenance staff, was there Tuesday to help open it at the building that’s now referred to as Bryan East Campus.

Inside were old medical supplies, brochures from around the hospital, photographs and other items the late-80s hospital staff wanted to send to the future.

The time capsule opening is part of Bryan Health’s 100-year anniversary celebration, running from this March to May 2026.

The time capsule highlighted some of the change Lyons has seen in the nearly 50 years he’s worked at Bryan Health

“When I started here — ashtrays on every table in the cafeteria,” he said. “And in the surgery and nurse’s lounge, when we replaced the tiles, they were just… yucky. So, we’ve come a long way.”

System Vice President of Bryan Health Bob Ravenscroft said Bryan has a long history of medical innovation that he hopes will continue.

“This whole yearlong celebration is to educate our next gen of leaders and employees on what this place was built about and symbolically pass the torch to them to be here for the next 100 years doing the same type of innovative and progressive medicine that we know that the community deserves,” Ravenscroft said.