Cows, thieves, a dumpster dive: The singular story of Idaho’s loneliest parking meter

In 1956, Owyhee County Clerk Kenneth Downing stood in front of the Owyhee Courthouse in Murphy, snapping his suspenders as he showed an Associated Press reporter the community’s claim to fame: a single broken parking meter.

“Yes sir,” he told the reporter. “It’s the only parking meter in Owyhee County.”

Standing in the same spot today, a meter — but not the same meter, because this one actually works — still holds that title. A sign warns drivers that parking is enforced. Charges for the space range from 15 minutes for one penny to two hours for two nickels. No dimes allowed, people.

Located about 50 miles southwest of Boise, Murphy — which once claimed to be the smallest county seat in the United States — was made up of just 31 people when the meter was installed in 1953. Its residents owned more horses than cars, the AP article that ran in the Idaho Statesman noted.

Seventy years later, Murphy’s population has grown to 190, according to the latest U.S. Census. Why does it still have this one parking meter? Here’s the story.

Hungry Owyhee County cows lead to unexpected solution

The meter’s origins can be traced back to hungry cows.

After the county seat was moved from Silver City to Murphy in 1934, local leaders built a courthouse surrounded by the only lawn in town, according to Eriks Garsvo, director of the Owyhee County Historical Museum. Cattle from the surrounding farms couldn’t resist the crisp, green grass.

“Murphy back then was all desert,” Garsvo told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “It was all sagebrush, so the cattle saw that lawn as a buffet.”

To keep the cows from feasting, county officials erected a fence around the building. But courthouse employees soon became frustrated by drivers unknowingly blocking the entrance when they parked in front of the fence’s only gate.

Their salvation came in the form of an old parking meter fished out of a Nampa junk heap by the county clerk. Its timing mechanism didn’t work and the coin slot was clogged, but it would do. Downing installed the solitary meter in front of the gate, with a row of unmetered parking spots stretching out on either side.

“The joke was, of course, if you put the parking meter there, no one will want to park there anymore because no one’s going to pay the parking meter toll when there’s plenty of other parking all around the building,” Garsvo said.

“The gag” had given the courthouse staff plenty of laughs, according to the 1953 article. The clerk said “city drivers” took it seriously — he’d seen some wrestle with the machine’s perpetually waving violation flag for 15 minutes. The deputy sheriff even got in on the fun by serving a “bogus citation” to one “city motorist,” the article said.

New meter helps with Murphy, Owyhee history

The parking meter that stands today, however, was not the one installed by Downing. The original was stolen — likely in the 1970s, by Garsvo’s estimate — and had to be replaced.

To this day, no one knows whether it was taken by someone wanting a piece of Owyhee history or knocked over by cows taking revenge for the whole fence thing.

The replacement meter was also broken — until Garsvo decided to fix it and add the sign.

“I took it off, opened it up and it was in good shape,” Garsvo said. “All it needed was some cleaning and a little bit of repair by a clocksmith.”

Any bit of change collected by the meter now goes to his museum, where Garsvo keeps a special piggy bank for it.

“One year, I think we collected around five bucks worth of coins,” he said.

The whereabouts of the original meter are still a mystery. But if anyone has been holding on to guilt for the past 50 years, Garsvo said he is willing to let bygones be bygones. The meter can be given to the county museum without anyone facing consequences.

Anyone with information about what happened to it also can email skrutzig@idahostatesman.com to coordinate a return or simply regale a Statesman reporter with the story of its disappearance.