parking meters

In July 1935, the world's first parking meters were introduced on the streets of Oklahoma City. Carlton C. Magee, editor of the Oklahoma City Daily News and a member of the Chamber of Commerce traffic committee, was concerned with the parking problem in larger cities. He came up with a prototype of a device that would charge people for parking. He entered into a partnership with Gerald A. Hale, a professor at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, to refine his parking meter. In 1932, Magee applied for a patent (a government document that grants an inventor the sole right to manufacture his or her invention for a certain period of time) on his invention. Parking meters are now in use in major cities throughout the world.