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The bank robbery was a prelude to troubles still to come. Crippled by the robbery and the Depression, Grand National was taken over by the government in 1933. In 1934, both Mays' banking and insurance ventures came under stateinvestigation. It was revealed that the penthouse had been furnished at a cost of $72,000 to Continental Life Insurance, that Mays had strong-armed his bank employees to buy stock in the faltering insurance venture, andthat he was over 19 months behind in payment of his $1,000 monthly rent on the penthouse. Mismanagement of Continental Life had produced a substantial debt. There were further controversies surrounding handling of insurance payment following the robbery; the building had not been insured against fire or tornado (Mays claimed that Continental was "tornado and fire-proof). The State Insurance Department took over the company, sueing Mays over the missing rent and evicting him from the penthouse. Mays resigned from both his presidencies, and returned to his home in small-town Arkansas. He was eventually cleared of any personal wrong-doing, however; State Investigator O'Malley, in charge of the case against Continental Life, eventually was jailed for bribery acceptance and extortion charges. Next Site || More Continental Building > > >

Post-Dispatch, July 27, 1934:
Headline: Only the Gold Fish Left in Ed Mays' Penthouse
Sub-headline: Continental Life President Vacates 18-Room Apartment After Eviction Suit is Filed

Deserted except for five gold fish which swim idly about the multi-colored glazed terra cotta pool of the fountain room, the luxurious 18-room penthouse apartment of Ed Mays on the top three floors of the Continental Life Insurance Co. Building stands vacant today.

The State Insurance Department, which has taken over the insurance company of which Mays is president, intends to advertise the penthouse for rent. Albert A. Ridge, attorney for Insurance Superintendent O'Malley, thinks it may be possible to rent the apartment as headquarters for a club.

Eviction Suit Filed.
Mays and his family moved out yesterday, taking an aprtment on the southwest corner of Waterman and Clara Avenues. He was 19 months behind in the $1000 monthly rental he had agreed to pay for the penthouse, and agreed to move after O'Malley had filed an eviction suit.

The penthouse apartment occupies the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third floors of the building on Olive street, just west of Grand boulevard. From its windows and roof terraces, on clear days, a view which extends from one end of the city to the other may be obtained.

These floors, it was brought out at the recent hearing of O'Malley's [?? (denotes missing pieces. The article was very old and crumbling.)]

...partly furnished at cost to the insurance company of about $70,000. Mays and his family lived there for four years, and it was there that he entertained business associates from other cities.

Sliding Panel in Door.
A Post-Dispatch reporter went through the apartment after it had been vacated. It is reached by the same elevators which serve business offices in the building. Leaving the elevators at the twenty-first floor, the visitor is confronted by a heavy door, opening into the apartment. In the center of the door, at about eye-level, is a sliding panel which may be opened from the hallway beyond the door.

The long hallway, in rough cream colored plaster, leads, on the left, to the fountain room, with its stone floor, and its walls covered with murals by Frank Nuders[??], well-known St. Louis artist, which depicts scenes familiar to Mays as a boy and young man in Arkansas. The artist went with Mays to make sketches for these pictures. He was paid [??] for the work.

The fountain occupies [the center] of the room. Rising [from the middle] of the fountain is a [??] heron, from the mouth of which water spurts, and flows back into the pool. Colored lights beneath the surface of the water illuminate the pool.

Secret Doors in Panels.
To the left of the fountain room is the study, and to the right, the living room. Walls of the study are paneled oak, each panel forming the door of a secret compartment. Some of these were open when the reporter visited the penthouse. He closed one, and was unable to find the spring which would open it, so cleverly was it concealed. Hanging from the center of the beamed ceiling is a large chandelier in the form of a globe of the world, the light within illuminating the map.

Framed mottoes and poems by Edgar Guest and others remained on the walls of the study. One, titled "It Will End All Right", began:

 Life makes us pull [??]

Another lamented the life of a banker. Mays, besides being president of the Continental Life Insurance Co., controlled the Grand National Bank and the Wellston Trust Co., both of which are being liquidated. This poem read:

 A sorry life the banker leads,
 There's little glory in his deeds.
 When he says "No," the people curse.
 When he says "Yes," it's even worse. 

Fireplace in the Living Room
The spacious living room has a terrazzo floor, an oak wainscotting and the rough cream plaster which appears in many of the rooms. There is a large brick fireplace on the west wall, an don the north wall, a terrazzo staircase with an ornamental iron balustrade. ON the right is a small music room, and farther down on the right is the dining room.

Walls of the dining room, which occupies the southwest corner of the building, are paneled with oak from floor to ceiling. Heavy green brocade drapes hang at the window and a large crystal chandelier is suspended from the ceiling. The floor is of quarter-sawed oak.

A small breakfast room, with flowered walls, adjoins the dining room and opens into the pantry and through it to the green and white kitchen, equipped with an incinerator, electric dish washer and electric icebox and a gas range. A maid's room and bath are next to the kitchen.

On the second floor of the apartment are six bedrooms and three baths, one with pink, another with purple, and a third with green fixtures. All the bedrooms are green carpeted, and the windows are draped with brocade. The master bedroom, in the northwest corner, is approached through a small lounge room and a short hallway, off which is the pink bathroom.

Roof Terraces
Roof terraces are off the bedrooms at the east and west sides [??] ...These are small, and much of the space is taken by floodlights which shine on the tower of the building.

The third floor is given over entirely to a party room, about 40 by 50 feet. The rustic theme predominates here, with walls covered with the rough bark of Arkansas timber. The ceiling is low; a tall man would have difficulty in dancing in parts of this room, and the machinery which operates the elevators is just behind one wall, causing an unpleasant noise when the elevators are moving.