Highrise #192 Address: 8 N. Third St. Opened: 1930 Height: 365' Stories: 29 Style: Gothic, Art Deco Architect: Wyatt Hedrick

Memphis, TN

Empty for nearly four decades, its crumbling concrete skin shedding paint, this speculative skyscraper designed by a Texas architect for his millionaire father-in-law was in trouble almost from the moment it opened.

Its name is a surname mashup of architect Wyatt Hedrick and Ross Sterling, a Houston oil magnate, newspaper publisher, and chairman of his own bank and the state highway commission. Visiting the construction site in 1929, Sterling joked that his highrise would look better in Houston, and declined to confirm rumors he would run for governor of Texas.

Sterling did run the next year, and won. That same year, the biggest oilfield yet was discovered in east Texas. So many gushers flooded the market that crude oil prices plummeted to 2 cents a barrel, and the new governor declared martial law to stop drillers from violating production limits