Al and Nancy Hammer of Jefferson Township hold a newspaper from July 20, 1969, the day after American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin landed and walked on the moon.

At 10:56 p.m. EDT on July 20, 1969, Neil Amstrong put the first footprint on the moon, an event witnessed by a worldwide audience of an estimated 600 million people, including Nancy and Al Hammer, Concordia Haven residents.

In 1969, the Hammers were newly married and living in an apartment in Bellview.

They stayed up watching the grainy black-and-white images being beamed live from the moon.

“I don't remember what network, but more than likely it was CBS because (Walter) Cronkite was the guy to watch back then,” Nancy Hammer said.

“We watched the whole thing until the very end as far as I know,” said Al Hammer.

“I was totally mesmerized. I had been into astronomy since I got my first telescope at 13,” he added.

Bud Sears, another Concordia Haven resident, also stayed up watching.

“I was quite interested in the astronauts,” Sears said.

He was recently discharged from the U.S. Army's 16th Field Artillery Regiment, where he had been an electronics engineer on the Honest John rocket, the first nuclear-capable surface-to-surface rocket in the United States arsenal.

He also was a new dad.

“My wife and I had adopted a baby girl, and we were changing diapers so we had no problems staying up,” he said.

Sears said since 1969, he has collected items that commemorated the moon landing, such as the 1976 Eisenhower Bicentennial dollar coin with the image of the Liberty Bell and the full moon on the reverse side.

Others weren't part of that huge television audience.

This is an excerpt — read about more locals talking about their experience of the 1969 moon landing.

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