Similar to most urban areas in the post-World War II era, Oklahoma City experienced urban sprawl into outlying municipal and suburban areas in the 1940s and 1950s.[1] At the same time, increased automobile traffic exhausted the limited parking availability in the Oklahoma City downtown area, a phenomenon which was exacerbated by the dismantling of the Oklahoma City Railway after World War II.[2] In addition, real estate lots downtown – a holdover from the days of the Land Run of 1889 that settled the area – were too small to accommodate expanding business sizes.[3] By 1962, 53 downtown retailers had closed or moved to the suburbs
