“Frankly,” says Bundy, “it wasn’t a very smart investment, but so many people wanted it preserved. So fascinated did Dick Bundy and his partners become with the historic site that in 2000 they arranged a partnership with Marvin Groves Electric, purchased the building and spent $180,000 remodeling it. In time, however, it was again orphaned, and there was steadily growing talk of having it demolished before the architectural firm of Bundy, Young, Sims & Potter was hired by the city to stabilize the downtrodden structure.
In 1986, the city deeded the building to the Wichita County Heritage Society, which attempted to preserve it. Then came the Depression, and the little building was boarded up and forgotten. Still, with office space in such demand, oil companies squeezed desks into the tiny space and called it home until the boom finally fell silent. McMahon had built exactly according to the blueprints they’d signed off on. Duped investors unsuccessfully chased after the scam artist and sought legal remedy only to be told they had no case. Stairwells that led to the upstairs floors occupied 25 percent of the interior.Īnd by the time construction was completed, McMahon was nowhere to be found. The completed building’s outside dimensions were a closet-sized 11 feet by 19 feet. Apparently too busy to keep an eye on construction, investors ultimately found themselves owners of a building that looked more like an elevator shaft than high-rise office space. What the promoter failed to mention, legend has it, was that the scale of his blueprints was in inches rather than feet. What would result, McMahon promised, was a multistory office building that would go up just across the street from the thriving St. With blueprints in hand, he set about quickly selling $200,000 in stock to investors caught up in the quick-buck frenzy of the day. There was a desperate need for office space in Wichita Falls, and a Philadelphia oil man/promoter named J.D. Today, the building is a Texas Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.When the discovery of black gold in nearby Burkburnett turned thousands of Wichita County residents into instant millionaires, mineral rights deals were being made on street corners and in the shade of quickly erected tents that served as oil company headquarters. It was featured in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! column as “The World’s Littlest Skyscraper” and the name stuck ever since. It didn’t even have stairs to reach the upper floors, so people had to use ladders. The Newby-McMahon Building as it was soon called was completely useless.
McMahon fled Wichita with his money, leaving his less than satisfactory building behind him. The 480 figure on the craftily designed blueprint was in inches – not feet! When he was sued, the judge threw out the lawsuit since the blueprint was technically correct and there was no concrete evidence of foul play usable in court. When confronted, McMahon calmly explained that it was his plan all along. Why? Because McMahon’s structure was only 40 feet tall, instead of the 480 feet one that people paid him to build. (That’s over $2,500,000 in today’s money.) He built his building successfully, but people everywhere were beyond angry with him. With just a simple blueprint, the saavy businessman raised $200,000 for his feat. McMahon set out to build the world’s largest skyscraper in Wichita Falls, Texas.
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