Oklahoma Journeys

Week of April 7, 2007

First Parking Meter, 1935

This week on Oklahoma Journeys: Celebrating our Centennial we're talking about something that's a common sight, generally disliked wherever you go, and was involved in sending Cool Hand Luke to prison. It's the parking meter of course, an Oklahoma invention and the topic of this week's Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma historical society.

From the Oklahoma Historical Society, this is Oklahoma Journeys: Celebrating our Centennial, I'm Michael Dean.

In the 1930s many large cities around the world were encountering the growing problems of traffic and parking congestion but it was Oklahoma that took the lead in finding a solution. In 1933 Carl Magee was named Chairman of the Oklahoma City Traffic Committee a joint committee selected by the city council and chamber of commerce. The object was to come up with a workable prototype of what today we call a parking meter. McGee and others felt that the lack of regulated parking was hurting downtown business. In many cases employees who worked downtown took up all of the spaces leaving no room for customers or patrons. Cars occupied parking spaces all day everyday and never moved sometimes for weeks. Coming up with a device to regulate parking was complicated in several ways. It had to be vandal and tamper proof, there had to be a way to stop people from using slugs and washers instead of coins, it had to be durable enough to withstand constant use in all types of weather, and it had to be affordable. After much work a parking meter that met the requirements was developed. But then came the problem of getting the city council to approve the idea of charging the public to park in what had previously always been free parking spaces.'

It was in this week of July in 1935, on July 16th that hundreds of people gathered in the heat and humidity of downtown Oklahoma City to watch 150 of the new meters put into place. According to local papers initial reactions were not favorable and newspapers boys within minutes figured out a way to jam the machines so they would work without using any money. Stores without meters in front began advertising free parking as a gimmick but quickly changed their tune. Business and profit increased significantly for stores located on blocks containing the meters and soon every downtown business demanded meters on their block. The legal issues of making someone pay for parking on a public street was averted by claiming that the money made from the meters actually went to pay for the policing of the parking, not the actual parking itself. A court case contesting the legality of meters was quickly settled in favor of the city. Within months of the initial installation cities around the world were requesting meters beginning a trend that continues to this day. And Carl Magee left his job as editor of a daily newspaper in Oklahoma City and started the Dual Parking Meter Company, a company still in existence today though under a different name. Magee died in the mid-1940s and is buried in Tulsa.

You can see the original meter and learn more about the history of the parking meter at the Oklahoma History Center located on N.E.23rd Street just east of the state capitol in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma Journeys: Celebrating our Centennial is a production of the Oklahoma Historical Society dedicated to the collection, preservation, and sharing of our state's past. I'm Michael Dean.