Orlando city officials revealed the contents of a five-decade-old time capsule Monday, unearthing magazines, maps, cassette tapes and other memorabilia from when Gerald Ford was president of the United States and “Rocky” was the highest grossing movie in the country.
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That time capsule was buried to celebrate America’s 200th anniversary. Less than a week from the nation’s 250th birthday, more than 40 people gathered in the Orlando City Hall rotunda to get a look at the snapshot of city life from 1976.
Originally buried at Lake Eola Park near the Kiwanis Club of Orlando, it was relocated during park construction more than a decade ago and then kept in a climate-controlled warehouse. It remained shut until Monday, as it was marked to be opened this June, according to city officials.
“A time capsule is a bridge to what our city was like 50 years ago,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer during the event, “which is hopefully going to show us what was important to residents, what everyday life was like.”
The capsule, a rectangular vault made of a terracotta-like material, was covered in white swirled designs and the remnants of what once may have been blue and red paint. It was buried when Carl Langford was mayor of Orlando, and the city’s population was about 116,000 residents. Orlando now has about 340,000 who call it home.
Two people lifted the box’s lid, revealing a pile of dusty items. Dyer and other city officials pulled on rubber gloves and retrieved them, cutting open packages bound in plastic wrap and ribbons patterned like the American flag.
A circular plastic plaque read “American Revolution Bicentennial.” There was a phone book, camera film canisters, metal pins, the tattered remains of a baseball cap and an orange t-shirt with the outline of a giant thumbs up.
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It also contained flyers for Florida Technological University — now the University of Central Florida — along with a magazine on Walt Disney World’s opening and a copy of the Sentinel Star —now the Orlando Sentinel — headlined with “Syrians Shatter Peace in Lebanon.” Some type-written documents appeared almost new, while others were yellowed and flaking.
The Kiwanis Club, a service group that helps Central Florida children, planted the capsule in 1976 at the base of a 60-foot flag pole installed that year in Lake Eola Park, said Matt Kelly, the group’s president.
When the capsule was prematurely dug up during construction, the group didn’t know what it was. “Through some good Google searches and whatnot, figured out, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a time capsule’,” he said.
Monday, Kelly read aloud a letter written by a former club president, which was also stored in the capsule. The collection of 50-year-old memorabilia was meant to add a “historic dimension” to patriotic festivities at the time, according to the letter.
Now that the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration is underway, Kelly proposed a new plan.
“Keeping with tradition, I think it’s wise for our club now to get our act together and get some other items to put into a time capsule so that we can open this in the 300th anniversary of the country,” he said.
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