The 50-year-old time capsule about to be freed from the Magnolia Boulevard Bridge.

With a hammer and a chisel, a Burbank city worker this morning carved out a tiny silver time capsule 50 years after it was first tucked into the base of the Magnolia Bridge.

"It was there — we found it," said deputy city manager Joy Forbes, excitement and relief bubbling through her voice.

City officials did not know the capsule was due to be opened on Feb. 5, 2009, until Larry Harnisch at the Times’ Los Angeles history blog e-mailed them over the weekend. City workers hustled to find the location of the time capsule. When they pried off the dedication plaque on the base of the bridge, near 1st Street and Magnolia Boulevard, they found a darker patch of cement.

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Stan Lynch, who attended yesterday’s event and the original ceremony in 1959, told the Burbank Leader:

There were already film studios in 1950s Burbank, but the shutdown of Lockheed’s manufacturing plants by the end of the 1980s has changed the city the most, Lynch said.

“When I was 14, it wasn’t unusual for 75% of the classmates to have family that worked for Lockheed,” he said. “The mall on Magnolia Boulevard is the biggest change after that. We finally got a mall.”