During the 1920s, a new problem was created by the growing ownership of vehicles: parking. According to the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, some merchants in Oklahoma City approached Carl C. Magee, the owner of the Oklahoma News. Magee sponsored a contest at the University of Oklahoma, challenging students to design a timing device for allocating each vehicle a fixed duration for parking.
The same encyclopedia article explains that none of the submissions proved entirely usable, and in 1933 engineering professor H. G. Thuesen, in concert with Gerald A. Hale, Thuesen’s former student, developed the “Black Maria,” a spring-wound timing device that followed Magee’s concept and met his design criteria.
In 1935 Magee incorporated the Dual Parking Meter Company, with himself as president. Refinements were added by the chosen manufacturer, the MacNick Company of Tulsa. Dianna Everett of the Oklahoma State Historical Society writes that trademarked as the “Dual” and later as the “Park-O-Meter,” Magee’s brainchild was adopted by the Oklahoma City council. In July 1935 175 units were installed in a fourteen-block area of central downtown. The first meter was installed on the southeast corner of First Street and Robinson Avenue on July 16, 1935.
World’s first installed parking meter, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1935
The meter was powered by a clock-type mainspring that required periodic winding, and cost a nickel for each hour. Futhermore, a twenty-dollar fine resulted if the car remained after time expired.
The idea spread to other major cities. By the early 1940s, over 140,000 parking meters were operating across the country, generating huge revenue for cities.
History.com reports that by the early 1940s, there were more than 140,000 parking meters operating in the United States. Today, Park-O-Meter No. 1 is on display in the Statehood Gallery of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Citylab notes that the meter maid first appeared in American cities in the 1950s to crack down on illegal parkers.
In the 1980s, Citylab adds, the parking meter began to make some technological advances. At first, the shift was from mechanical machines to battery-operated systems. The last mechanical meter was replaced in 2006. Now, computerized multi-space meters incorporate on-screen instructions and credit card acceptors. More recently, Washington, D.C., installed solar-panel machines. Some systems even let you pay by cell phone.
A solar-powered multi-space meter in Ann Arbor, Michigan, via Wikiwand
Today, “Automobile Evolution” estimates there are between four and five million parking meters in the United States.
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