1935 : An entrepreneurial politician files a patent program for a gadget that will educe curse and contempt from generations of automobilist : the parking metre .
If it were n’t for Pearl Harbor , FDR might have calledMay 13a day that will live on in infamy . It was 75 years ago thatCarl C. Mageeof Oklahoma City sought a patent of invention for the existence ’s first parking m . Many will come to see the innovation as a curse of urban keep .
presently after Magee lodge to protect his noetic property , theworld ’s first installed parking meterswere put into nickel - swig service right there in Oklahoma City in July 1935 . Your five cents ( about $ .80 in today ’s money ) get you anywhere from 15 minutes ’ to an hour ’s worth of parking , depending on location .
Some would say things have been going downhill ever since .
Who among us has not clear a bit too late that we forgot tofeed the meter , or been walking back to our elevator car on a beautiful leap Clarence Shepard Day Jr. just in time to see aticket being slapped onto our windscreen ?
Blame Carl Magee .
What prompt this on the face of it fine upstanding lawyer , newspaper editor in chief and occasional senate nominee to come up with his infernal twist ? He was appoint to the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce traffic committee , and then he was assign the undertaking of solving business district parking problem .
Even back in 1935 , U.S. cities were have thoroughly modern problems : actor park on downtown street and stayed all twenty-four hours . That left few spaces for shopper and others who visited the central business district .
Magee ’s brainstorm was to instal a equipment that had a coin acceptor and a dial to rent a timing chemical mechanism . A visible pointer and flag indicate the expiration of the pay menstruation , meaning you either had to move , put in more money or face the wrath of thelocal constabulary . The design proceed largely unchanged for more than 40 years .
Carl Magee ’s new parking metre not only solved Oklahoma City ’s parking problem , it also got a new revenue current flow in to urban center coffers . Magee refer moneyin the patent practical program for “ meter for measuring the meter of occupancy or role of parking or other blank , for the habit of which it is desirous an concomitant charge be made upon a time basis . ”
U.S. Patent No . 2,118,318was granted for the equipment May 24 , 1938 . The idea spread out to other urban center around the country and the world . Magee managed to make money fabrication meters and sell them to many municipality , starting at $ 23 a pop ( $ 365 in current hard currency ) .
No one seems to likeparking meters , but they do serve their intended determination of controlling parking and generating revenue . On top of that , they provide the central plot point forPaul Newman‘s 1967 filmCool Hand Luke . Newman ’s reference Luke Jackson , was sent to a chain pack for drunkenly cutting the top off several parking meters .
Do not try this at home .
germ : Various
picture : A circa-1940 parking time in Long Beach , California , extol itself an “ original Carl Magee m . ”
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