The hybrid type of the city hall–fire station was popular in small Texas towns during the 1920s. Instead of the customary 1920s version of this type—stacking city offices atop the truck bays of the fire station—Houston architect Smallwood adapted the one-story commercial storefront building type to mixed civic uses, sneaking in a commercial rental space at the west end of the building on Avenue H. Smallwood used arched openings and a low, tile-roofed tower at the Avenue H and 4th Street intersection to give the former City Hall its official identity. The fire station component, on 4th Street, lacks the minimal architectural detail he used to articulate the street walls of the rest of the building.