As I said last week: you know what they say: as Falls Wichita, so falls Wichita Falls. Over 100 thousand souls. Fun tourist note: "A flood in 1886 destroyed the original falls on the Wichita River for which the city was named. After nearly 100 years of visitors wanting to visit the nonexistent falls, the city built an artificial waterfall beside the river in Lucy Park. 

More Wichita Falls. I must have really gone clip-crazy, or there was a lot of stuff, or both, or who cares.

Bygone swankiness - nice little sign for what appeared to be a parking garage entrance.

Some of these shots say Sunday, or pandemic times - either way, there’s a depressing sterility you only get with expired modern architecture.

the sight of a colored building makes you wonder why there aren't more.

THEN WE TAKE BERLIN

It has a certain impressive heft, and no doubt was intended to suggest Your Money is Safe Here, but it seems a bit too much, like a roided-up bouncer for a nursing home.

Ah. That’s better.

The Hamilton Building.

Restored:

During construction of the Hamilton Building in the late 1920's, Mr. W. B. Hamilton had the two top floors of the building designed and specifically built for the Wichita Club. The Hamilton Ballroom was once used as a lounge and dance floor as part of that exclusive club and still retains many of the original features. The Library which is adjacent to the Ballroom is also available for small functions or for additional seating or food presentation for larger events. This intimate room with a stone fireplace was once used by the city's elite for conducting business meetings and for gathering to share news of the day.

The height of urban swank, once:

Now the lights are off and it looks like someone dropped a neutron bomb in 1966.

Nice! Really. Airy.

But a city needs only one or two of these.

Thin brick rehab for a bar, perhaps.

Can’t explain the curves in the boards; not a camera glitch. An old citizen in the last sad years; can’t imagine anyone would spruce it up -

Oh.

Nice little contrast here: one of these buildings thought it was so solid and impressive . . .

But it’s the neighbor’s light modernism that made it look elegant after its vogue had passed. Right? At least from this angle.

The rest of the building is not good. It seems vise-clamped together and feels like it’s about to explode from tension.

Rather charmless and indifferent mauling here. Those windows must have been nice on a fall twilight when the store was still open.

Empty; you assume the sign would come down if a new tenant showed up. Or it would be painted and reused.

They did love painting that brick, didn’t they.

Either tectonic forces or Google camera slicing edited the name.

A lot of names for such a modest project. Can't blame them.

“No one’s coming here to stay. How about I order a new sign that’s 350% bigger?

This is a mystery.

Old building gutted to make that open area? Or was it always open, and used for something automotive related? I’ve seen those deep cuts on car-related storefronts before, and the driveway would seem to suggests that’s the case -

Except that the driveway is new.

You know this was built with public money.

I mean, maybe not, but it has the look of a civic structure. And nicely done - you usualy don't see that Spanish Baroque style.

Wha?

No argument here:

Wikipedia:

Reportedly the result of a fraudulent investment scheme by a confidence man, the Newby–McMahon Building was a source of great embarrassment to the city and its residents after its completion in 1919. 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," a nickname that has stuck with it ever since. The Newby–McMahon Building is now part of the Depot Square Historic District of Wichita Falls, a Texas Historic Landmark.

The story, which may be apocryphal, is hilarious: apparently investors poured money into his project, thinking it would be 480 feet tall, never noticing that the blueprints said no such thing. They said 480, yes, but in inches.