July 16: First parking meters installed

By the early 1940s, there were more than 140,000 parking meters operating in the United States.

The world’s first parking meter (brainchild of Carl C. Magee), known as Park-O-Meter No. 1, is installed on the southeast corner of what was then First Street and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on this day in 1935.

Despite opposition that paying for parking is un-American, the first meters were installed by the Dual Parking Meter Company beginning in July 1935; they cost a nickel an hour, and were placed at 20-foot intervals along the curb that corresponded to spaces painted on the pavement. Magee’s invention caught on quickly: Retailers loved the meters, as they encouraged a quick turnover of cars–and potential customers–and drivers were forced to accept them as a practical necessity for regulating parking.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/worlds-first-parking-meter-installed