It started out innocently enough, but then most swindles do. In 1919, Wichita Falls was a crowded place. While area businessmen were enjoying the first of several region-wide oil booms, offices were located wherever space could be found, and “”coat pocket”” business addresses were as common as anything made of bricks and mortar.
Investors practically stood in line to buy stock in a construction project proposed by a Philadelphia building engineer, the plain-looking tenant of the Newby Hotel, a man whose given name has been lost to history. He probably was a genuine building engineer or he could never have presented his $200,000 (c. 1919) project so convincingly! Contracts were signed, money changed hands and construction began on the lot next door to the clever visionary’s hotel address. Trouble was, none of the investors seemed to notice that the Philadelphian’s blueprints, which called for dimensions measured in square feet, were actually executed in square inches until after the property, still standing after 80-plus years, was finished. By then, the Easterner had long checked out of the hotel, taking the bulk of his ill-gotten $200,000 along. A quaint antique shop, Antique Wood, now calls The Littlest Skyscraper its home.
Smooches,
Lucy
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