The bank is a real surprise, with its decidedly Moorish architectural character. The bank's president, George Washington Brackenridge, was a Unionist and one of the city's wealthiest men. Designed by New York City architect Eidlitz, the bank's facade with its horseshoe-arched window on the first floor and the triple horseshoe-arched window on the second is an early instance in Texas of an architect turning to the mission churches of the city for a source. Specifically, here, the Moorish-arched entrance of San Francisco de la Espada (
SA87). Thus, it may be one of the first Spanish Colonial Revival buildings in Texas, predating by thirty years the rise of that style.