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KF5JRV > TODAY 16.07.25 12:20l 34 Lines 2303 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 16
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KF5JRV
Sent: 250716/1001Z 10515@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.24
The worldâ€Ös first parking meter, known as Park-O-Meter No. 1, is installed on the southeast corner of what was then First Str
eet and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on July 16, 1935.
The parking meter was the brainchild of a man named Carl C. Magee, who moved to Oklahoma City from New Mexico in 1927. Magee ha
d a colorful past: As a reporter for an Albuquerque newspaper, he had played a pivotal role in uncovering the so-called Teapot
Dome Scandal (named for the Teapot Dome oil field in Wyoming), in which Albert B. Fall, then-secretary of the interior, was con
victed of renting government lands to oil companies in return for personal loans and gifts. He also wrote a series of articles
exposing corruption in the New Mexico court system, and was tried and acquitted of manslaughter after he shot at one of the jud
ges targeted in the series during an altercation at a Las Vegas hotel.
By the time Magee came to Oklahoma City to start a newspaper, the Oklahoma News, his new hometown shared a common problem with
many of Americaâ€Ös urban areasâ€öa lack of sufficient parking space for the rapidly increasingly number of automobiles crowdin
g into the downtown business district each day. Asked to find a solution to the problem, Magee came up with the Park-o-Meter. T
he first working model went on public display in early May 1935, inspiring immediate debate over the pros and cons of coin-regu
lated parking. Indignant opponents of the meters considered paying for parking un-American, as it forced drivers to pay what am
ounted to a tax on their cars, depriving them of their money without due process of law.
Despite such opposition, the first meters were installed by the Dual Parking Meter Company beginning in July 1935; they cost a
nickel an hour, and were placed at 20-foot intervals along the curb that corresponded to spaces painted on the pavement. Mageeâ
€Ös invention caught on quickly: Retailers loved the meters, as they encouraged a quick turnover of cars–and potential custom
ers–and drivers were forced to accept them as a practical necessity for regulating parking. By the early 1940s, there were mo
re than 140,000 parking meters operating in the United States.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email KF5JRV@gmail.com
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