The current church replaced a Gothic Revival design dating to 1899 that was located at midblock. Originally ministered by itinerant priests, the church was entrusted in 1926 to the Franciscan order from Jalisco, Mexico, fleeing from religious persecution following the Mexican Revolution. The incongruously composed new sanctuary includes a rose-colored Alamoesque parapet flanked by twin towers in front, and a colorfully tiled dome at the rear. Alluding to the eighteenth-century Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the building is more attuned to church design in Mexico than in the United States.
The church is located at the northeast corner of a plaza (bounded by N. Cedar, N. Hickory, E. Tilley, and E. Sta. Clara streets) that was part of the original Hebbronville plat. The plaza includes benches, statues, and bandstand, the traditional elements of a Mexican public space, suggesting that the cultural border of the United States and Mexico extended well north of the Rio Grande.