{"id":156891,"date":"2026-01-30T19:29:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/156891\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T19:29:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:29:28","slug":"las-central-library-pops-open-its-time-capsule-inside-the-never-before-seen-contents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/156891\/","title":{"rendered":"LA\u2019s Central Library pops open its time capsule. Inside the never-before-seen contents"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Central Library building in downtown Los Angeles turns 100 this year<\/a>. And on Thursday, library staff kicked off a year-long celebration by opening a very old box buried during its construction: a time capsule.<\/p>\n

The opening was historic because the contents haven\u2019t been shown publicly until now. Here\u2019s how we got here, plus some items that caught our eye.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Central Library cornerstone is laid on 5th Street, along with the time capsule, with City Librarian Everett Perry, and Board of Library Commissioners Frank H. Pettingell, Katherine G. Smith, and Frances M. Harmon-Zahn. <\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

LAPL Institutional Collection<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

About the time capsule<\/p>\n

In May 1925,<\/a> more than 100 library staff members came together with the Board of Library Commissioners for an informal ceremony to dedicate the Central Library\u2019s cornerstone, which is a giant limestone block on the outside.<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n

Inside a specially carved pocket in the stone, they placed a copper box filled with relics about the library and broader L.A. The 1881 time capsule from the California State Normal School, which previously<\/a> occupied the land, was also put inside. (Fun fact: that school later became UCLA.)<\/p>\n

Library officials weren\u2019t even sure the box was still there \u2014 much less how to get it out. A team drilled a small hole into the grout to find it. From there, Todd Lerew, \u200aspecial projects director at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, said it took about a year to figure out how to remove it.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWhen we were doing our tests with a little borescope camera to locate the capsule itself, we also found that the wall behind the cornerstone was not structural,\u201d Lerew said.<\/p>\n

That meant it could be broken down safely. To get the box, they took out a couple of historic wall panels, capped off the plumbing and got to work busting down a wall in the men\u2019s bathroom. It took about a week to get it out.<\/p>\n

The box was made of copper, but had been custom-made and soldered shut on all sides. They had to cut into it with shears, Lerew said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The copper box, which had been soldered shut, had to be cut into with shears<\/p>\n

Exploring the contents<\/p>\n

No one knew what to expect inside the box. When it was opened, to much anticipation, it turned out to be a unique snapshot of L.A. in the 1880s and 1920s. Inside were dozens of documents, photos and keepsake items that spanned everything from government records to community memories.<\/p>\n

There were annual reports from city departments, rulebooks, portraits of library leaders and even employee lists that included janitors. It had multiple editions of the city charter \u2014 essentially L.A.\u2019s constitution \u2014 and a population count from 1881 on a small card that showed just 11,000 Angelenos.<\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/p>\n

Some of the contents of the capsule<\/p>\n

A scrapbook was also inside to document where the central library was before the main building (learn more about that here<\/a>). It had newspapers from both time periods \u2014 including ones in Spanish, German and French. For some reason, the Normal School\u2019s capsule included a copy of the Oshkosh Northwestern.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe\u2019re still putting together why a newspaper from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, made its way into the 1881 time capsule, but I had a very puzzled look on my face when I pulled that out,\u201d Szabo told the crowd.<\/p>\n

Another oddity? The Normal School also had a memento from President James Garfield\u2019s funeral, which happened in Cleveland, Ohio<\/a>. He had been assassinated just months before the time capsule\u2019s burial.<\/p>\n

Lerew said the newfound contents are helping restore library records, largely because a devastating arson fire in 1986 destroyed a fifth of its collection at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe\u2019re constantly trying to fill gaps in our collections,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we\u2019re able to do that for our own institutional history, that\u2019s such a special thing and doesn\u2019t come along every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The capsule\u2019s next steps<\/p>\n

The Central Library has centennial programming<\/a> all year long \u2014 and the time capsule will be part of that.<\/p>\n

A selection of the contents will be on display soon outside the literature and fiction department on the third floor. The rest will be stored in the special collections department, which you can make an appointment to see here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019ve ever wanted a chance to see a time capsule get made, the Central Library plans to create a new one sometime this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Central Library building in downtown Los Angeles turns 100 this year. And on Thursday, library staff kicked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9376,75153,48,52,51,76741,47,50,49,9833],"class_list":["post-156891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anniversary","tag-central-library","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-la-public-library","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-time-capsule"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}