WHEN is a cornerstone laid?

Here's an interesting blurb from a newspaper called the Hendricks Pioneer, from the  March 5th, 1903 issue. (Hendricks is SW Minnesota, near the SD boarder).  It was just a filler for them, and it's possible no one cared about this item for the next 108 years....UNTIL the World's Best Researcher found it and saved it--YAY!                              

Cousin Gary Janson in front of the cornerstone
of St Michael's Catholic Church in Buckman, MN.

 No doubt this Carl Kropp was a good German boy, and a good builder, too, because Larry found that Kropp also got the contract for the Carnegie Library in St Cloud...(a $25,000 award by the Carnegie Corporation of New York on February 16, 1901)....a building that was used for the next 80 years.  


However, I'm wondering how people determine what year to carve on a cornerstone.  In the sweep of history, a year either way doesn't make much difference, I suppose.  But if St Michael's cornerstone says 1902, how come a builder wasn't  employed until the NEXT year?  Did our ancestors maybe dispute how stuff should be done??


Oh well, these little mysteries are partly what keeps this genealogy thing interesting, and you reading, right? ☺