Expand<\/a><\/p>\nSuarez then introduced Julie Bartolotto, executive director of the Historical Society of Long Beach. The capsule was a gift to the city from the organization.<\/p>\n
Bartolotto discussed how the country has changed from its founding in 1776 to its bicentennial celebration in 1976 \u2014 when the capsule was buried on July 4 to dedicate the former City Hall and library \u2014 to today, during the U.S.\u2019s 250th anniversary year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe struggles to recognize the civilizations on this continent before the United States was formed,\u201d Bartolotto said, \u201cthe struggles to recognize women in the Constitution, the struggles over who is a citizen, what rights are afforded to them, including voting rights, and the struggles to acknowledge people who were brought here against their will are not over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Rex Richardson, for his part, recognized the increased diversity in city leadership over the decades. The 1976 City Council was entirely male, Richardson said, with the first African American council member, Jim Wilson. Today, seven out of nine council members are women, including the first Cambodian person on the council, and Richardson as the first African American mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that there are things in this box that are going to represent what folks saw as their identity,\u201d Richardson said, \u201ctheir economic makeup and mix and things that represented what they wanted us to know about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Richardson put on white gloves and pulled the first item out of the silver box, the Civic Chambers were full of spectators, who pulled out their phones to record the moment. Richardson revealed a DC-10 model jet, representing Long Beach\u2019s aviation history and its then-modern innovations in aerospace technology. He also displayed a Los Angeles County flag and a Long Beach flag.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my parents taking me to a small parking lot next to the airport, where I would spend hours watching airplanes take off and land,\u201d Lee Beausoleil, one of the elementary letter authors, said in an interview. \u201cTo know that all the DC-10s flying came from my hometown is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next out of the capsule were the books of elementary student letters, a gold key to the city, a cassette and clippings from the Independent Press-Telegram and the American Revolution Bicentennial newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this a phonebook? I forgot about these,\u201d Richardson said to laughter, pulling a 1976 phonebook out of the capsule.<\/p>\n
He continued unveiling items, including gifts from then-Mayor Tom Clarke to the 2026 mayor and his wife: Queen Mary cuff tie bars, Long Beach flag cuff links and a bracelet with the city key and seal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a gift for the wife of the mayor,\u201d Richardson said, holding up the bracelet, \u201cassuming the mayor was male, straight and married.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last item Richardson revealed was a vial of oil, showing the value of oil in 1976 and highlighting the city\u2019s changing priorities, given rising oil prices and efforts to maintain clean beaches.<\/p>\n
City Manager Tom Modica then took the mayor\u2019s place at the front of the chambers. He removed from the capsule a city pamphlet, matchbooks, a Civic Center ashtray, a \u201cWelcome to Long Beach\u201d bar of soap, a Jones Dining Room menu, a municipal band record, a Sears catalog, a Port of Long Beach briefcase and a Frisbee.<\/p>\n
To conclude the ceremony, the five former LBUSD students read letters they wrote in elementary school about life in 1976 and their predictions for 2026. They wrote about smog, loud planes and tar-filled beaches, but also about the city\u2019s schools, parks and landmarks, such as the Queen Mary and new downtown buildings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved the letters from the students,\u201d City Clerk Monique De La Garza said in an interview. \u201cThey really brought home this whole event to me because they were so personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
One speaker, who attended Bret Harte Elementary, imagined televisions running on water and cars that didn\u2019t need gas. Another described a futuristic Long Beach with skyways and UFOs.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Fifty years from now, cars will run on electricity on rails,\u2019\u201d Beausoleil, also from Bret Harte, read from his letter. \u201cSo close.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beausoleil, now a teacher in Las Vegas, returned to Long Beach to see the capsule\u2019s contents and reconnect with his Bret Harte classmate.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fondest memories of my elementary school,\u201d he said, \u201cwere my fifth-grade teacher and some of the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the student speakers, Suarez invited the audience to the front to view the capsule\u2019s contents up close.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs somebody who works a lot with city records and all the different departments,\u201d De La Garza said, \u201cseeing that org chart and the departments that existed 50 years ago compared to what we currently have was really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach opened a 50-year-old time capsule on Wednesday, July 22 \u2014 unveiling flags, newspapers from 1976 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,179,4064,23,131,133,132,137],"class_list":["post-408713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-community","tag-local-history","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408713","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=408713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-11.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-05.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-01.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-10-1.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-09.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lee](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-08.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"City](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-03.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"City](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-06.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-02.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Sharon](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-07.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LPT-L-TIME-CAPSULE-0723-DK-04.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n