How A Con Man Scammed A Texas Town Into Building 'The World's Littlest Skyscraper'

It goes without saying that, by necessity, skyscrapers are built in big cities and/or their suburbs. That's where the tenants are. Sure, you could build one in a small town in the middle of nowhere, but if no one is going to purchase or lease space in it, then you've erected a building that's going to sit empty before it's eventually torn down.

A century ago, it looked like the town of Wichita Falls, Texas was on pace to become the next big city, after oil was discovered nearby, as the Texas State Historical Association reports. Amid all of this newfound wealth and prosperity, a con man rolled through town with promises to build a skyscraper in the community that, a year before, had barely qualified for putting ink on a map. Unfortunately, the townsfolk failed to read the fine print, and before long, they were left with a (mostly) unusable building that was taller than it was wide, like skyscrapers should be, but at a modest 40 feet tall, it was hardly a skyscraper. Further still, it was so narrow that no one wanted to lease space in it, and it sat derelict for decades. Fortunately, of late the town has leaned into its quirky place in architectural history, preserved and restored the building, and now proudly boasts that it's the home of the World's Littlest Skyscraper.

At this point, the narrative goes from documented historical fact to something that exists somewhere between truth and legend. This all happened a century ago, record-keeping was haphazard, and plenty of the people involved lost face and/or money. As such, parts of the story of the Newby–McMahon Building are based less on documented fact and more on speculation and local lore, according to the Austin Chronicle. But in the main, it goes like this:

McMahon turned up in Wichita Falls in 1919 with blueprints for a multi-story office building, which would go up on a busy downtown intersection across the street from a hotel. He needed investors, however, and soon enough he'd raised about $200,000, according to Texas Coop Power – about $3 million in 2022 dollars, according to Inflation Calculator. Before long, builders were putting hammer to nail, and the building was going up. And by the time anyone realized that something was amiss, it was too late.

When the dust had settled, the people of Wichita Falls were stuck with a building that no one could use and with the bill. Legend has it that the defrauded investors tried to get their money back, but there was nothing they could do: the builder had built the building exactly according to the plans he'd given to his investors, said a judge, as Texas Coop Power explains. A few tenants did manage to somehow squeeze into the tiny building and conduct business there — that is, until the Great Depression, which ended the party for good.

For the next few decades, the World's Littlest Skyscraper, officially the Newby–McMahon Building, sat derelict, in a city full of derelict buildings. Plans to save it or demolish it came and went over the years, while the 40-foot-tall monument to Failure to Think Things Through gathered dust. In the meantime, it became something of an ersatz tourist attraction, though possibly for the wrong reasons.