On July 16, 1935, the world’s first parking meter was put into use in Oklahoma City. They did not appear in the Netherlands until 1961.
The parking meter was his idea Carl Magee, a man who moved to Oklahoma City in 1927. Before that, he was a lawyer and newspaper publisher. Among other things, he played a key role in bringing it to the fore Teapot Dome-scandalwhere a high-ranking politician was bribed to lease cheap land to oil companies.
When he moved to Oklahoma City to start a new newspaper, the city had a problem: There weren’t enough parking spaces for the rapidly growing number of cars. People going to work parked in front of shops, which meant they got fewer customers. Magee, who had joined the Oklahoma City Transportation Commission in 1933, was tasked with solving this problem.
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Great success
In 1935, he invented the Park-o-Meter, the world’s first parking meter. When he introduced his device in May of that year, there was immediate opposition. Motorists were angry that they would have to pay 5 cents an hour to park; Until then, free parking was considered a kind of American right.
Despite this opposition, the first meter was installed on July 16, 1935. The merchants were immediately satisfied: cars were no longer parked all day. Within a few years, there were hundreds of thousands of parking meters in the United States.
The first parking meter in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, parking meters did not appear until 1961. To improve the flow of car traffic at Schiphol, the airport installed 70 parking meters. On March 19, 1964, they were also placed in the center of Amsterdam.
Jack de Nijs/Anefo/National Archives.
Bro: Oklahoma Historical Society