Volume 11 , Issue 35

1932 -- The Peoples Chronology

The Peoples Chronology, by James Trager, page 888, states that Oil wells within the city limits of Oklahoma City were drilled by local attorney Robert Samuel Kerr, 35, and his brother-in-law James L. Anderson who had acquired control of a contract drilling firm and had borrowed money to post $200,000 liability bonds in a gamble that large oil companies had refused to take. Kerr and Anderson would make a profit of some $2 million on the venture.

Page 889, of The Peoples Chronology, states Ford halts production of its Model A introduced in 1927 as it tools up to introduce the first low-priced V-8. Ford loses millions of dollars and lays off workers to reduce payroll costs from $145 million (1929) to $32 million (1933).

The Hudson Terraplane is introduced with streamlined styling.

Some 25 percent of US auto glass is safety glass. Many states enact legislation requiring safety glass in windshields.

General Motors Corporation forms a subsidiary to acquire electric streetcar companies, convert them to GM motorbus operation, and resell them to local entrepreneurs who would agree to buy only GM buses as replacement vehicles.

On page 890, of The Peoples Chronology, mentions that US Route 66 opens to link Chicago and Los Angeles with a 2,200-mile continuous highway that would be called the "Main Street of America." Soon lined with motor courts, Burma-Shave signs, two-pump service stations, and curio shops, Route 66 carried truckers and motorists west via St. Louis, Joplin, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Gallup, Flagstaff, Winona, Kingman, Barstow, and San Bernardino.

The first patent application for a parking meter was made in December 1932, by Oklahoma City News editor Carl C. Magee, who would be granted rights in 1936. Magee would apply in 1935 for a patent on a refined version of his 1932 parking meter. 174 Dual Park-0-Meters made by the Dual Parking Meter Company would be installed in Oklahoma City in July 1935, 300 more would be ordered when their success was demonstrated (police officers would be obliged to explain that no jackpots can be expected by those who deposit coins), and meters of the improved design would appear in the streets of major world cities in the decades to follow.

Washington's Arlington Bridge across the Potomac was completed by McKim, Mead and White of New York.

Juvenile Little House in the Big Woods by Missouri novelist Laura Ingalls Wilder, 65, began a series of eight volumes that would appear in the next 11 years to recount her girlhood in the Midwest of the late 19th century.
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