It’s an event five decades in the making—give or take a few months. More than a hundred people gathered outside of Santa Paula City Hall for the unveiling of a time capsule planted in the complex's front lawn five decades ago.
The idea is that it would be opened on June 16, 2025. What did Santa Paula’s leaders in 1975 want to share with the community 50 years later?
We found out.
According to former city employee and current Vice Mayor Carlos Juarez, he and other Santa Paula Rotary Club members worked with the city to put together the event to remember the community’s history.
"I've always known there's a plaque out in front (of city hall)," said Juarez. "I started telling the city that the date is coming up when it needs to be opened: June 16th, 2025. The plaque said it was buried by the Santa Paula Centennial Committee and the Santa Paula Rotary Club. We're all in Rotary, so we got involved."
Mitch Stone, a fellow Rotarian and historian, said the timing of what’s supposed to be a centennial time capsule is actually a little confusing. "It went into the ground in August (1975)," said Stone. "They had a whole series of events celebrating the centennial of Santa Paula. This date (June 16) is only one of many. It's the centennial of when the townsite map was officially recorded. Not when it was actually drawn up, and not when the town was actually founded, but when they made that official.
Fellow historian and Rotarian John Nichols talked about what he thinks they may find. "It's documents about the centennial, and a letter from the previous mayor to the future," said Nichols.
They tried to round up everyone who might have been on hand for the time capsule burial. They found one person who could make it to the event.
"I didn't remember being here, but then I saw the picture in the paper, and remembered, oh yeah, that was me," said Alice Henderson. "I was here, and my mother and my uncle were into this. I was driving here today and thinking about it. I'm fifth generation, and I'm pretty sure 140 years ago, when three of my great-great-grandparents came here, they were not thinking we would dig a hole and put something in it, and come back every 50 years to see what it was. But apparently, that's what we're doing," Henderson joked.
But, what if everyone showed up only to find dust in the time capsule? Juarez says they decided to hedge their bets, to avoid disappointment.
"Nobody likes surprises. We didn't want to wait until today to dig it up and find out that it was a coffee can rotted through and everything is destroyed. Last Thursday, we and the city (some city officials) came and opened the actual vault, and then took the time capsule out," said Juarez. "It was a solid pipe, a quarter of an inch in diameter."
They opened it, and once they saw the contents, which appeared to be intact, they sealed it back up for the official reveal.
Now, as the crowd watched, the time capsule was opened.
What was inside? A lot of papers that highlight events in the city, circa 1975.
There's a city seal, an official pen, a map of the city from the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce, and an invitation to a luncheon hosted by the centennial committee in 1975.
What does the crowd think?
"This is wonderful," said John Procter, a former Santa Paula Mayor and City Councilman. "My family goes back to the 1880s in Santa Paula, so I have some deep roots here."
"The map is really cool, to see what Santa Paula was like back in the day," said Santa Paula resident Kevin Osguera. He brought his young son out for the event. "I wasn't born at the time, but maybe it would have been nice to have cassettes, to hear some tracks that were being played back in Santa Paula in 1975."
Maybe music will be a part of the next time capsule, because there are plans to create a new one for the community, to be opened in 2075.
