Four Dual Parking Meter Company Advertising Brochures

Oklahoma City; Canton, Ohio: Dual Parking Meter Company, (n. d.), circa late 1940s. 28 x 21 or 22 cm. Three 4pp bifolia + one 8pp folded brochure. B&w illustrations. Minor wear to edges, else fine. Very Good+.

Four promotional brochures advertising Dual parking meters, "The Best Answer to the Traffic Control Problem." Included are: "Dual Automatic"; "Dual Gearshift Automatic"; "Metered Parking"; and "Off-Street Metered Parking". The Dual Parking Meter Company, supposedly named because the meters could both measure parking time and collect fees, was founded in 1935 in Oklahoma City by Carl Magee, who invented the automatic parking meter. Like many other cities, Oklahoma City was struggle to deal with the rising number of automobiles on urban streets:

"City officials believed that parking meters were necessary to cope with the influx of automobiles into downtown areas and give more motorists access to stores and other businesses. But motorists and merchants challenged the legality of meters, claiming that they annoyed shoppers, deprived merchants and their employees of access to their front doors, and imposed an unfair tax on right-of-ways that were open to all. ... As parking meters proved their compatibility with downtown traffic and their success at increasing revenue, meters became an accepted way to regulate curb parking and fund traffic-related improvements as well as general municipal expenses." (https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_763114)

We locate none of these brochures in OCLC.