Think of the times though, and the engineering savvy of the average person back then.
A comparison for today might be to put the plans for a computer chip in front of an average non-technical small-time investor and then use slippery language to trick them into believing it is something it's not. Tell them it will be the next big thing and will return their money tenfold, and greed does the rest.
It's quite possible back then that the investors, having never seen a skyscraper - or maybe even a proper blueprint - just didn't know what they were looking at, never mind doing any kind of real due diligence.
I heard about a guy who was collecting investments for "innovative" windmills. They (actually) had a small prototype that could handle wind upto 150 mph. And, if scaled up to full size could produce "lots" of electricity. They just needed money to build and test a full size version.
The scam is that windmills don't actually scale very well. If you have 100 MW blowing at the blades, you need a tower that can handle 100 MW of force - or something like that.
Of course, what do I know? I am but a humble computer nerd.
