World's littlest skyscraper

Background

A large petroleum reservoir was discovered just west of the city of Burkburnett, a small town in Wichita County, Texas in 1912. Burkburnett and its surrounding communities became boomtowns, experiencing explosive growth of their populations and economies. By 1918, an estimated 20,000 new settlers had taken up residence around the lucrative oil field, and many Wichita County residents became wealthy virtually overnight. As people streamed into the local communities in search of high-paying jobs, the nearby city of Wichita Falls began to grow in importance. Though it initially lacked the necessary infrastructure for this sudden increase in economic and industrial activity, Wichita Falls was a natural choice to serve as the local logistical hub, being the seat of Wichita County. Because office space was lacking, major stock transactions and mineral rights deals were conducted on street corners and in tents that served as makeshift headquarters for the new oil companies.

Proposal and blueprints

The Newby-McMahon Building is a four-story brick building located near the railroad depot in downtown Wichita Falls, built in 1906 by Augustus Newby (1855–1909), a director of the Wichita Falls and Oklahoma City Railway Company. The oil-rig construction firm of J.D. McMahon, a petroleum landman and structural engineer from Philadelphia, was one of seven tenants whose offices were based in the original Newby Building.

According to local legend, when McMahon announced in 1919 that he would build a highrise annex to the Newby Building as a solution to the newly wealthy city's urgent need for office space, investors were eager to invest in the project. McMahon collected $200,000 (US $2,800,000 in 2017) in investment capital from this group of naive investors, promising to construct a highrise office building across the street from the St. James Hotel.

The key to McMahon's swindle, and his successful defense in the ensuing lawsuit, was that he never verbally stated that the actual height of the building would be 480 feet (150 m). The proposed skyscraper depicted in the blueprints that he distributed (and which were approved by the investors) was clearly labeled as consisting of four floors and 480 inches (12 m).

Construction and ensuing legal battle

McMahon used his own construction crews to build the McMahon Building on the small, unused piece of property next to the Newby Building, without obtaining prior consent from the owner of the property, who lived in Oklahoma. As the building began to take shape, the investors realized they had been swindled into purchasing a four-story edifice that was only 40 ft (12 m) tall, rather than the 480 ft (150 m) structure they were expecting.

They brought a lawsuit against McMahon but, to their dismay, the real estate and construction deal was declared legally binding by a local judge – as McMahon had built exactly according to the blueprints they had approved, there was to be no legal remedy for the deceived investors. They did recover a small portion of their investment from the elevator company, which refused to honor the contract after they learned of the confidence trick. There was no stairway installed in the building upon its initial completion, as none was included in the original blueprints. Rather, a ladder was employed to gain access to the upper three floors. By the time construction was complete, McMahon had left Wichita Falls and perhaps even Texas, taking with him the balance of the investors' money.

Early occupancy and subsequent abandonment

Upon its completion and opening in 1919, the Newby-McMahon Building was an immediate source of great embarrassment to the city and its residents. The ground floor had six desks representing the six different companies that occupied the building as its original tenants. Throughout most of the 1920s, the building housed only two firms. During the 1920s, the Newby-McMahon Building was featured in Robert Ripley's Ripley's Believe It or Not! syndicated column as "the world's littlest skyscraper", which is a name that has stuck with it ever since.

The oil industry would ultimately prove to be a resource curse to Wichita Falls, and the Texas Oil Boom ended only a few years later. The building was vacated, boarded up, and virtually forgotten in 1929 as the Great Depression struck North Texas and office space became relatively inexpensive to lease or purchase. A fire gutted the building in 1931, rendering it unusable for a number of years.

After the Great Depression, the building housed a succession of tenants, including barber shops and cafés. The building changed hands many times and was scheduled for demolition on several occasions, but escaped this fate apparently because a sufficient number of local residents came to its defense. It was eventually deeded to the city of Wichita Falls. As the building continued to deteriorate, in 1986 the city gave the building to the Wichita County Heritage Society (WCHS), with the hope that it would eventually be restored, making it a viable part of the Depot Square Historic District.

Purchase and renovation

By 1999, the Newby-McMahon Building had proved to be an excessive burden on the limited capital reserves of the WCHS. The following year, the city council hired the local architectural firm of Bundy, Young, Sims & Potter to stabilize the crumbling structure, amid steadily growing talk of demolishing the building. Dick Bundy and his partners became fascinated with the history and legacy of the building; they arranged a partnership with Marvin Groves Electric, another local business, to purchase the building. In December 2000, the city council voted to allow the WCHS to sell the building to Marvin Groves for $3,748.

On June 11, 2003, a storm swept through Wichita Falls, bringing gusts of wind as strong as 97 mph (156 km/h). A 15-foot (4.6-metre) section of brick wall from the McMahon Building complex was knocked down. The damage from this storm was repaired, but full restoration of the building and the adjacent Newby Building was delayed until late 2005. In June of that year, the City Council granted $25,000 in funds from the city's Tax Increment Financing Fund, to be invested in the restoration of the McMahon Building. Restoration of the building is estimated to have cost more than $254,000, the remainder of which was paid by the owners (Bundy, Young, Sims & Potter, Inc. and Marvin Groves Electric).

Current status

With the passage of time, the Newby-McMahon Building has become a monument to a long-gone era. It has survived tornadoes, a fire, and decades of neglect to stand as a monument to the greed, genius, graft, and gullibility of the oil boom days of North Texas. The building is currently part of the Depot Square Historic District of Wichita Falls, which has been declared a Texas Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building has never met the criteria for the definition of a skyscraper, nor even that of a "highrise" building. After its renovation, the building was home to an antiques dealership, The Antique Wood, which opened in 2006 on the ground floor. Since 2013, besides being a local tourist attraction, a furniture and home décor consignment boutique, "Hello Again" has occupied the entire building. At times, floors of the skyscraper have been subleased to various local artisans.

The Newby-McMahon Building is among several historic buildings featured in the documentary film Wichita Falls: The Future of Our Past, a retrospective analysis of the city's architectural past produced in 2006 by Barry Levy, a public information officer with the city of Wichita Falls.