Amarillo, Texas: Helium Time Columns Monument
A six-story-tall spire with a big helium molecule in its center, celebrating all of the helium that's buried under Amarillo.
Don Harrington Discovery Center
- Address:
- 1200 Streit Dr., Amarillo, TX
- Directions:
- Outside the Don Harrington Discovery Center. I-40 exit 65, north on Coulter Drive to Wallace Blvd. (2nd light past I-40)., right on Wallace, right on Hagy and left on Streit Dr.
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Part scientific/historical monument to helium, part multi-pronged time capsule, all roadside attraction.
[S. Michael Wilson, 03/09/2020]
The Helium Time Columns are so much more than just a 66-foot-tall sculpture of four stainless steel columns. Each leg of the sculpture is a time capsule, with artifacts, letters, and knowledge from 1968 stored inside in an inert helium atmosphere. These time capsules were set to be opened 25, 50, 100, and 1000 years after the statue dedication in 1968.
But wait, there's more -- attached under the sculpture is a model of a helium atom. And the sculpture is also a sundial, marking the time on the dais that houses the sculpture.
[Johnny Mac, 01/20/2015]
A 60 foot, three-tiered spire with a 3-5 foot helium molecule in the center of the spire.
[david krussow, 05/11/2005]Can't miss the 6-story stainless steel helium molecule in Amarillo, Texas! It's in some medical park or something north of I-40.
[jim, 01/18/1997]That's the Helium Time Columns Monument, outside of the Don Harrington Discovery Center, erected in 1968 to commemorate the centennial of the discovery of the unusual natural element, found in Amarillo in the world's greatest quantity!
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Each of the four "columns" in the sculpture contains a 1968 time capsule filled with valuable artifacts -- packed in helium -- from the helium industry. The first was opened in 1993, and the last will be opened in 2968.