Reported in The Tri-Valley Herald
June 19, 1999

 Misplaced time capsule
right where Livermore left it

By Sean Holstege
STAFF WRITER

LIVERMORE --- Tell Dan Rather that his "history mystery" has been solved.

On the third effort Friday, city groundskeepers dug up the missing Centennial Time Capsule.

In the end. the case of the missing time pod was about as mysterious as a lost set of car keys. Usually, they turn up in the most obvious place, and so did the time capsule.

 Etched Into the concrete base of the Centennial Totem Pole at Centennial Park was a symbol: 2'. Exactly 2 feet below the symbol, the capsule was found.

For a time, all the mayor's radars and all the mayor's men couldn't recover the time pod again. It took a May 6, 1974, city memorandum to break the case.

"The time capsule was sealed and buried as you requested. Its location is at the back of the Totem Pole monument, north side in Centennial Park --- it is buried at the base of the monument.

Photo by ANGELA MACCHIA --Staff

Livermore Mayor Cathie Brown pulls a 1974 edition of the Tri-Valley Herald out of the Centennial Time Capsule an Friday as (left to right) Alex Powell, 12, Casey Nobel, 11, and Jesse Nobel, 14, look on.

 (Continued)

The exact location is marked on the cement mowing strip at the base of the monument with this marking (2)," reads the document, recovered Thursday by City Clerk Alice Covert.

She had succeeded where successive waves of metal detectors, metal prods and radar equipment had fallen short.

Friday's unearthing ceremony began with a familiar feel. It was another sunny, breezy lunchtime with a gaggle of dignitaries standing around the totem pole.

This time, there was something different: a rope coming out of the ground. Maintenance Superintendent Pete Isganitis, saving Mayor Cathie Brown a third red face, sent a crew out to the pole two hours earlier to verify that the capsule was indeed there.

All Brown had to do was pull on the rope. Out popped an aluminum canister.

Four names will be forever linked to the historic occasion: Jesse Noble, 14; Casey Noble, 11; Alex Powell, 12; and Karl Arroy. 13. The four boys took turns loosening four wing nuts that have sealed-in the capsule's contents for 25 years.

The first thing out was a 1969 bottle of Wente chardornnay.

Other trinkets followed.

>- A brass commemorative coin featuring two bunches of grapes and a nuclear symbol, proclaiming 1869-1969 a "Vintage Century."

 >- An Aug. 10, 1969, Air Show poster, and a sheet of music written by then-councilman Don Miller titled Centennial Rag.

>- A photo book tided .Suburbia" in which Bill Owens scribbled "That's the way it was, folks."

>- The April 23, 1974, edition of the Tri-Valley Herald. Volume 99, Number 342 was printed with a Centennial Herald logo and led with a story about a City Council decision.

>- A broken beer glass, and an intact ceramic beer mug.

>- A round wooden token.

"A pog!" Casey Noble shouted.

Paul Heppner, who chaired the Centennial Committee in 1969, explained later that stores around town gave 25-cent discounts to anyone who paid with a wooden Centennial token.

The youngsters were most impressed by Friday's event.

"I feel important," Powell said. "Nothing ever happens in Livermore and this is like the first really exciting thing."

"This is history," Arroy said.

All the trinkets will go into display case at the Alameda County Fair and then at the Livermore Heritage Guild museum in Carnegie Park. After that, Barry Schrader hopes to have the Centennial Time Capsule resealed and buried alongside the millennium capsule. This time, it will be marked by a plaque. He's learned his lesson.

Herb Hagemann, 78, savors the moment as the Livermore Centennial Time Capsule is opened Friday. He helped put some of the items in the capsule in 1974.

I'm relieved this is over. It's been a long three weeks," he said, noting he had no idea of the two-marks-the-spot clue until the memo was found.

It was the perfect end to a tortured centennial. Heppner said it was cursed all along. Castlewood Country Club burned down not long before a kick-off banquet. Monthly events were staged all year in 1969, including a barbecue for 100 people at which two cow carcasses were barely cooked.

It took the committee five years to bury the capsule. The Millennium Committee has six months.

April 2, 2000