Bits of history, some dating back 103 years, were unearthed Tuesday by demolition crews at the Downtown El Paso, TX YMCA.

Workers found a black metal box containing a Bible and other items that were buried in 1906 and 1957.

The crews, from Blair Hall Construction Inc., are tearing down the old YMCA at 701 Montana. They found the box in an outer wall near the pool.

A wave of curiosity washed over the workers when the box turned up.

"I told them that it was a time capsule and to move away," said Grant Thomas, supervisor at the construction site.

The box was originally placed in a different YMCA building at Oregon and Missouri in 1906. Fifty-one years later, Robert E. and Evelyn McKee, contractors, moved the box to the building on Montana. At that time, new objects were added to the time capsule.

"Everything in the box is Y-related," Thomas said.

One document listed the names of donors to a turn-of-the-20th-century fund-raising drive to build the YMCA at Oregon and Missouri.

The box held construction plans for the Oregon building, and a Bible with a 1906 dedication.

Also inside was an El Paso Herald-Post from Aug. 1, 1957. Front-page stories included coverage of a rainstorm in Marfa and Big Bend, a bigamy case involving a woman married to two soldiers and the U.S. Senate allocating $33 billion so soldiers would be paid.

Ruth Galvan, assistant to the president of YMCA El Paso, said that the box was to be opened in 2006, but that it could not be found then.

We knew about the time capsule, but we did not know where it was placed and we were not going to tear down all the walls to find it," Galvan said.

The old Montana YMCA is being demolished to build the Pat O'Rourke Recreation Center.