Posted on 06/15/2007 12:26:27 PM PDT by Kaslin
TULSA, Okla. - Hundreds watched Friday as a crane lifted a muddy package from a hole in the courthouse lawn: a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere buried to celebrate Oklahoma's 50 years of statehood.
The wrapped car — a gold and white two-door hardtop — appeared brown and red as it came out of the hole, but it was unclear whether the color represented dirt or rust. A bit of shiny chrome was visible on the bumper.
The car spent the last half-century covered in three layers of protective material and encased in a 12-by-20-foot concrete vault, supposedly tough enough to withstand a nuclear attack.
But event officials already had to pump out several feet of water from its crypt.
The car was placed on a flatbed truck so it could be unwrapped, spruced up and officially unveiled Friday evening at the Tulsa Convention Center. Spectators packed the streets to glimpse its journey.
Whether the car will start was unknown. Those who gathered to watch it being pulled out of the ground did not seem to care.
"I just need to see it," said Marc Montague of Auckland, New Zealand, among the couple hundred spectators amassed at the downtown site Thursday afternoon. "I've been waiting 15 years for this."
Also buried with it were 10 gallons of gasoline — in case internal combustion engines became obsolete by 2007 — a case of beer, and the contents of a typical woman's handbag placed in the glove compartment: 14 bobby pins, a bottle of tranquilizers, a lipstick, a pack of gum, tissues, a pack of cigarettes, matches and $2.43.
There was also a spool of microfilm that recorded the entries of a contest to determine who would win the car: the person who guessed the closest of what Tulsa's population would be in 2007 — 382,457 — would win.
That person, or his or her heirs, will get the car and a $100 savings account, worth about $1,200 today with interest.
Thursday afternoon, legendary hot rod builder Boyd Coddington inspected the vault and what he was able to see of the car with his crew.
The task will fall to Coddington, host of the TV series American Hot Rod on The Learning Channel, to try to start the thing up at a ceremony Thursday evening. Tens of thousands of tickets were sold for the event.
"We're optimistic," Coddington said. "I'm really concerned about the rust on the bottom of the car."
Back on the day the Belvedere was buried, all Bixby resident Marlene Parker wanted to do was find a photographer for her wedding. Catching a glimpse of the car being lowered into the ground was the last thing on her priority list.
Unfortunately, not for the photographer: He was shooting the burial.
This weekend, the 70-year-old will celebrate 50 years of marriage and may come downtown to see what all the fuss was about back then.
"Probably across the pond people know about it," Parker said. "If nobody knew where Tulsa, Oklahoma was before, they do now."
Time capsule buried during 1939 New York World's Fair, not to be unearthed for 5,000 years.
Ahhh..., my grandmother told me about that 1939 New York World’s Fair. She said it was amazing. One of the things that she metioned frequently, when talking about it was the Interstate freeway system, shown in models, with the interchanges and roads going over and under each other, twisting and intertwining with one another, like we see now. She thought that was amazing.
I don’t know if she knew about that time capsule, though, as I never heard her mention it.
I looked up some links for some other people...
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/magazine3/items.html
[contents of the time capsule...]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_New_York_World’s_Fair
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/magazine3/1939.html
http://www.pmphoto.to/WorldsFairTour/index.htm
Regards,
Star Traveler
The coordinates given in post 133 are from the book of record of the contents of the time capsule, and will supposedly place one within feet of it provided GPS is working properly, the poles haven’t shifted, etc.:
40° 44’ 34” .089 N
73° 50’ 43” .842 W
Try checking out that location closely in Google Earth or Google Maps. The place doesn’t exactly look well-manicured or tended.
<2007>That's a Moltov Cocktail! Somebody call Homeland Security!</2007>
Better looking wrecks have been pulled out of the Bosphorus.
Don’t forget - they consulted with supposed experts in nuclear power plant construction.
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