The oil strike near Burkburnett in 1912 and the boom that followed turned Wichita Falls into the hub for a field of new fortunes. By 1918 some 20,000 newcomers had crowded in, office space ran out, and deals were struck on street corners and in tents near the railroad depot.
Into that came J. D. McMahon, an oil-rig builder and petroleum landman from Philadelphia with an office in Augustus Newby's 1906 building at Seventh and La Salle. In 1919, the story goes, he announced a high-rise annex and raised $200,000 from investors. He built it with his own crews on a scrap of land next door that he did not own. The finished building stands 40 feet, or 480 inches, tall, about 18 feet deep and 10 feet wide, with interior rooms about 12 by 9 feet, and it had no stairs at first, only a ladder. Local tradition holds that the plans had always said 480 inches, not feet, and that a judge upheld the deal; McMahon was gone by the time the investors understood.
Robert Ripley put it in Believe It or Not! in the 1920s as the world's littlest skyscraper. It emptied in 1929, burned in 1931, held barbershops and cafes and dodged demolition several times. A local architecture firm and an electrical company bought it in 2000 for $3,748 and restored it, and it stands in the Depot Square Historic District.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour