For a year or two the club’s finances seemed unaffected by the Great Depression. In 1930 the MAC celebrated its 15th Anniversary and resident memberships reached the 2,500 limit. Railroads were a major part of the transportation scene then, with Burlington advertising six trains a day to Chicago. President of Ford-McNutt Glass Company, John McNutt became the MAC president in 1932, when the name of the club magazine was change from the Gopher-M to the MAC Gopher.

The MAC lost money in 1932, and its largest loss, $36,000 occurred in 1933. But on December 5, 1933, the passage of the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition after 13 years, and liquor sales brought in new revenue. The next year many members forced to resign earlier in the depression were able to return to the fold. Finances improved each month, and the club resumed a solid financial position.

John Helm, president of Minneapolis Savings and Loan Association who became the MAC president in 1933, initiated a clubhouse sun deck and dining in another special area on the roof called the SS Gopher-M Deck. At the 20th Anniversary in 1935, Helm said, "At the end of twenty years it seems to me that we have a right to be extremely optimistic concerning the future. We have come through a severe depression with property, finances and membership in fine shape. Twenty years of faithful service to the community have made the MAC one of the outstanding institutions of the city."

Maurice Hessian Sr., a lawyer in the firm of Thompson, Hessian, Fletcher & McKasy, followed Helm. Although World War II began in 1939, the first year of his MAC presidency, it was on the other side of the world and the club held many black-tie events as well as more informal affairs such as the annual Mulligan Party and Monte Carlo Night.

John Maclean, president of Minneapolis Savings and Loan Association, presided over the grand Silver Anniversary Celebration, featuring a chorus of dancing girls and balloons, just as at the MAC’s opening in 1915. Maclean was also the host of an enormous slumber party on November 11, 1940, the date of the famous Armistice Day snowstorm. About 190 MACers who couldn’t get home from downtown spent the night in the clubhouse guest rooms, 12th-floor cocktail lounge and lobby.