Amanda Erickson’s brief history of the parking meter is
fascinating, not least because it illustrates a point that many
business owners and public officials misunderstand today: low
turnover of parking spaces is bad for business. What was once
the transportation mode for the rich has become de rigueur for
the masses. Streets meant for horse and buggy now needed to
transport hundreds of cars to and from work every day. Then, of
course, there was the question of parking. By the 1920s,
downtown shop owners had begun to complain in earnest about the
parked cars left by workers during the day. Without proper
infrastructure, shoppers had no place to stop; as a result,
business was dropping rapidly. This was a problem in cities
across America. But no place was quite so innovative as Oklahoma
City. There, storekeepers turned to newspaperman Carl C. Magee
(who, we should note, is also famous for uncovering the Teapot
Dome Scandal in New Mexico and shooting a corrupt judge in a
fight in Las Vegas). Magee had his own id