Welch parking garage claims title as nation's first municipal one

Welch’s Municipal Parking Building still carries downtown drivers in and out of 59 McDowell Street, but its most enduring feature is its place in American parking history. A plaque inside identifies the four-level concrete structure as the first municipally owned and operated parking building in the United States, a claim that turns a modest garage into one of McDowell County’s most distinctive civic landmarks.

The building opened to solve a problem Welch knew well: downtown congestion in a county seat squeezed between the Tug River and the railroad. Its footprint was shaped by those nearby barriers, and the structure was designed to provide space for 425 cars. That practical purpose fits Welch’s mid-century growth, when automobile traffic had become part of daily life and the city needed a way to keep the commercial core moving.

The garage was dedicated in September 1941, with Mayor B. F. Howard and Clerk Hobart E. Payne among the local officials tied to the project. Architect Hassell T. Hicks and contractor Virgil Stowe helped turn the plan into the concrete building that still stands today, alongside council members L. E. Rogers, H. D. Sly, R. B. Armentrout, John Gullet and W. H. Gannaway. The city now treats the garage as part of the everyday rhythm of downtown, offering complimentary parking there on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The building’s importance reaches beyond parking. In Welch, public space and civic ambition often overlapped, and the garage reflects that era of confidence in downtown design, when even a utility structure was built to be permanent, visible and useful. Welch was incorporated in 1894, had a courthouse by 1895 and saw growth accelerate after the Norfolk & Western Railway reached the area in 1891. Its population climbed from about 300 in 1895 to 3,232 in 1920 and 5,376 in 1930, numbers that help explain why a municipal garage made sense in the first place.

The garage also sits within a broader local history that reached the national stage. John F. Kennedy spoke in Welch on May 3, 1960, bringing a presidential campaign stop to the same downtown that had once been built around coal, rail traffic and county business. For Welch, the parking building remains more than a place to leave a car. It is a working reminder that this small downtown once expected big traffic, and built accordingly.