We don’t have parking meters in Preble County. When you park in downtown Eaton, the county seat and only city, everything is free. You simply pull into one of many spots. There’s normally plenty of spaces available.
So I don’t think about parking meters much. In fact, most of us don’t until the time comes when we are fishing for a quarter when we have to pay those parking machines.
They haven’t always been around. There is a first for everything.
The world’s first parking meter, known as Park-O-Meter No. 1, was installed on the corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This happened on July 16, 1935.
If you wonder who came up with the idea, I’m here to tell you.
The parking meter was the brainchild of a man named Carl C. Magee. He moved to Oklahoma City in 1927.
Magee had a colorful past. He had moved to Oklahoma from New Mexico. There, he worked as a reporter for an Albuquerque newspaper.
And that is when he played a pivotal role in uncovering the so-called Teapot Dome Scandal. Magee did the uncovering and reporting on this affair. The scandal was named for the Teapot Dome oil field in Wyoming. Anyway, trouble started when the secretary of the interior (Albert Bacon Fall) was convicted of renting government lands to oil companies in return for personal loans and gifts.
Magee also wrote a series of articles exposing corruption in the New Mexico court system. He was also tried and acquitted of manslaughter after he shot at one of the judges targeted in that series during an altercation at a Las Vegas hotel.
What does all of this have to do with parking meters? Not much. Except for Magee.
Magee came to Oklahoma City to start a newspaper, the Oklahoma News. But when he got here, he found that his new hometown shared a common problem with many of America’s urban areas. They had a lack of sufficient parking spaces. You see, a lot of towns had an increasing number of automobiles crowding into the downtown business district each day. But no spots to park.
Asked to find a solution to the problem, Magee came up with the Park-o-Meter. The first working model went on public display in early May 1935. This all sparked a huge debate over the pros and cons of coin-regulated parking. Oh, the terror.
Indignant opponents of the meters considered paying for parking un-American, as it forced drivers to pay what amounted to a tax on their cars, depriving them of their money without due process of law. Uhn. I think I know some of these same people today.
Despite such opposition, the first meters were installed by the Dual Parking Meter Company beginning in July 1935. They cost a nickel an hour.
So Oklahoma City started it all. The meters were placed at 20-foot intervals along the curbs. And Magee’s invention caught on quickly. Retailers loved the meters, as they encouraged a quick turnover of cars. And, of course, potential customers.
Like them or not, the everyday drivers were forced to accept them as a necessity for regulating parking. By the early 1940s, more than 140,000 parking meters were operating in the United States. Today, there are about 5 million in the USA. Stuffed with quarters.
But not a one in Preble County, Ohio.
Ka-Ching.
“””””””””
“The road to success is always under construction.” — Lily Tomlin
“””””””””
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“””””””””
“You can’t drive forward looking in the rearview mirror.” — Les Brown
“””””””””
Park it here. Cost you a nickel, pal.
