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 high-rise 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 in investment capital from this group of naïve investors, promising to construct a high-rise office building across the street from the St. James Hotel. Supposedly, the key to McMahon's swindle, and his successful defense in the ensuing lawsuit, was that legal documents listed the height as 480" (inches) as opposed to 480' (feet). Investors did not seem to notice, and McMahon apparently never verbally stated that the actual height of the building would be . 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. According to legend, investors brought a lawsuit against McMahon over the size of the building, but to their dismay, the real estate and construction deal was declared legally binding by a local judge. They did recover a small portion of their investment from the elevator company, which refused to honor the contract after learning how small the building was. No stairway was 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 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 ultimately proved to be a resource curse to Wichita Falls, and the Texas oil boom ended only a few