Highrises are the iconic elements of American cities. Reaching radical new heights in technological advancement, skyscrapers fused Classical, Renaissance, and Gothic motifs onto steel and defined a new architectural language with Art Deco and International.

The Highrises project reveals hidden details of remarkable buildings, including many that are underappreciated. The images showcase structures that reflect the values and ideals animating the early 20th century. The stories provide historical context and deepen our understanding of their importance and value.

Highrises

**Continental Life Building**

**Art by:** Chris Hytha

**Story by:** Mark Houser

College students from nearby St. Louis University rent apartments in this highrise named for an ill-fated insurance company. Older alumni may recall illicit parties in the tower, which stood vacant for decades while its hallways collected empty beer cans and fraternity graffiti.

Continental Army soldiers and their wives sculpted on terracotta piers symbolize the eponymous firm whose president, Ed Mays, started out as a bank clerk in the Arkansas Ozarks. He soon ran that institution, invested in zinc and copper mines and a factory making barrel staves, and eventually moved to St. Louis for bigger opportunities.

Besides the insurance firm, Mays was also president of a local bank, Grand National, and commissioned this skyscraper in the city's theater district to house both. To economize, he had the bank's vault door unhinged and moved to its new location here. But robbers found out, and broke into the weakly guarded old vault before its contents were transferred.

Mays paid a ransom to get back most of the loot, but he still lost the bank in the Depression, along with the insurance company and his luxurious two-story penthouse atop this building. He returned dejectedly to Arkansas and resumed the less panic-prone barrel stave business.