Asheville's 1999 time capsule

Do you remember 1999? Ricky Martin’s “Livin La Vida Loca” topped the charts, we were scared of the Blair Witch, and Google officially launched .

To celebrate, Google Trends opened its time capsule to see which fads were titanic in 1999. According to the report, adults were watching “The Matrix” and “The Sopranos” while kids were into “Toy Story 2” and “Teletubbies.” People also used the search engine to learn about David Beckham or evaluate their Pokémon cards, and searches for hot sauce set the web ablaze .

Livin La Vida Local

Want to know what life was like in the 828? We dug up some data to help us remember the final year of the 20th century — thanks to some help from a 25-year-old search engine.

Do you remember 1999? That year, Google officially launched . To celebrate a quarter century, Google Trends opened its time capsule to look at the world’s search history.

To explore our local time capsule, we used the 25-year-old search engine to take a glimpse at life in Asheville at the turn of the millennium.

• Median family income: $43,900
• City’s population: 65,974
• Estimated cost to buy a home: $132,650
• Average cost of a gallon of gasoline in NC : $0.594

In the news

Asheville Motor Speedway raced its final lap + the Mast General Store made its debut on Biltmore Avenue.

Sounds of the 90s

Tickets to see Elton John at the Asheville Civic Center — now Harrah’s Cherokee Center — were a hot commodity. Thomas Wolfe Auditorium welcomed Willie Nelson and Family earlier that year, the first time Nelson had returned to Asheville after almost being arrested by Asheville Police for drinking on stage at his 1980 show.