Garden City ? The whereabouts of a U.S. Treasury bond left to the Finney County Public Library in 1984 have baffled library, county and state officials, who weren’t aware of the bequest until a copy of the bond was found when a time capsule was unearthed in 2008.

The mystery began when Earl C. Brookover Sr., founder of Brookover Feed Yards in Garden City, bequeathed the bond to the library, and it was placed at what was then the Garden National Bank. Brookover bought the bond for $3,888 but officials estimate it is now worth $60,000.

A copy of the bond and a letter from Brookover detailing his gift were buried in a time capsule in a Garden City park in 1984 and unearthed in December 2008, The Garden City Telegram reported.

Nobody from the library knew about the gift until the Finney County Historical Society handed over the items from the time capsule. Since then, the library’s board of trustees has tried several times without success to locate the money, said Rocky Cook, chairman of the library’s board.

Cook said the search has been complicated because the Garden National Bank changed hands at least four times in the last 25 years. So in March 2009, the library board turned its information over to county officials.

“We turned it over to them, and we backed away,” Cook said. “(But) it was meant for the library and for the building. There are certainly many things that could benefit from this gift.”

County Counselor Tom Burgardt said the county has tried several methods to locate the money, from tracking leads through the sheriff’s office to alerting state officials and the Office of the Kansas Securities Commissioner.

“We don’t have the original bond,” Burgardt said. “When we can find out where that went, we should be able to call the bond.”

Kathy Diehl, a director of compliance with the Kansas Office of the Securities Commission, said the mystery is almost an “impossible situation.”

The original zero-coupon bond was purchased by Brookover Sr. from State Street Bank and Trust Co., Diehl said.

No one checked on the funds in more than two decades, in part because the Garden National Bank changed hands so many times.

“The original bond was put into Garden National Bank and the copy was put into the time capsule … and everybody forgot about it. In that time, no one said, ‘Where’s my bond?,'” Diehl said. “Due to the continual round of bank purchases and the length of time, we’ve been unable to find the broker that is holding the $60,000.”

Diehl said state officials don’t believe any criminal activity is involved, just a “comedy of errors.”

Patricia Fishback, a vice chairwoman of the library board who knew Brookover, said the $60,000 is important to the library, which was built nearly three decades ago and still has some of its original equipment.