Sunday, May. 18, 2008

Time capsule gives Turlock a glimpse of city 50 years ago

TURLOCK -- Sealed letters, a woman's bonnet, two wooden nickels from Turlock's 50-year Golden Jubilee, old newspapers, buttons, city posters, a Pacific Telephone phone book and more were unearthed Saturday morning when a time capsule was dug out of Central Park in downtown.

With instructions not to open until 2008, the city's centennial year, the contents of the red metal tube, welded shut 50 years ago, were a mystery until the items spilled out onto a small folding table in the park.

"I wonder if there's any money in here," joked Mayor John Lazar, holding a sealed envelope with white rubber gloves. "It'll help us balance the budget this year."

Central Park marked an appropriate spot for a time capsule. The land is on the original site of the train depot, switching yard and telegraph station that started the city in the 1870s, said Rob Santos, Centennial Committee co-chairman and a Turlock Irrigation District director. (2008 marks 100 years since the city's incorporation.)

Ivan Lowe, 91, remembers the Golden Jubilee, when the capsule was buried to mark the city's 50th birthday. He sang in the choir at the fairgrounds.

"It's kind of rewarding, to see both occasions," Lowe said after wielding a golden shovel. "That's a rare thing, I think."

Envelopes filled with church, fraternity and business group rosters seemed to fill much of the time capsule. Santos opened a letter from Cliff Gloeckler, the Golden Jubilee chairman who wrote to his peers 50 years in the future.

"It is not possible to give tribute by name to each of that group of intrepid men and women who made our community possible, but it gives me great pleasure in saying their energy, foresight, fine ideals and business acumen have been rewarded with the proud and thriving Turlock today, and as you read this, tomorrow," Gloeckler wrote on May 29, 1958, and Santos read Saturday.

Gloeckler is alive and well in retirement in Flagstaff, Ariz., said his niece Sue Ramos.

"I remember his jewelry store and I remember downtown," she said. "I remember my dad taking me here for chocolate sodas. I was young, but I remember. You know, I was probably here at this ceremony. I would have been 3."

The time capsule was just the start of a day's worth of events in Turlock on Saturday. Antique vendors flooded the streets while city workers were breaking ground in Central Park. About 1 p.m., foodies came out for Taste of Turlock, a $25 food fair during which restaurants opened their doors to peripatetic eaters.

More than 200 tickets were sold, but with the intense heat and a lack of shade on closed-off Main Street, planners expected a lower-than-normal turnout.

In sunglasses, a sun hat and a Hawaiian shirt, Roger Larson and his wife, Kim, who carried an open umbrella, strolled the antiques fair and worked up an appetite.

"We came last year and it was a lot of fun, so we came back this year," Kim Larson said. "It's a nice event."

"What do you want?" Roger Larson said. "It's the valley. We can take the heat."

Bee staff writer Michael R. Shea can be reached at mshea@modbee.com or 578-2391.