T his is not the first, but the second Sacred Heart church on this site. The first one, like most of Galveston, was taken by the Great Storm. This second one was designed in the Moorish style by Brother Peter Jiménez. It is modeled after the Grand Synagogue of Toledo, Spain and Immaculate Conception church up the coast in New Orleans, Louisiana. Its gleaming white surface stands in contrast to the heavily-shaded streets and porches the surround it. While most great building of Galveston are in shades of red, this building only turns crimson at sunrise when the low angle of the sun over the Gulf adds a tinge of blood red to the otherwise sparkling exterior. After his original Sacred Heart Church was wiped from the Earth by the Great Storm, N.J. Clayton returned to work on its successor by designing the great onion dome. It is an unusual style for a church in the United States, which usually looks to Russia for inspiration in this area.
You can see what the original Sacred Heart Catholic Church looked like by going to the state of Georgia. Brother Cornelius Otten used N.J. Clayton's plans for Sacred Heart in Galveston to build Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Augusta, Georgia. At the same time the new church was dedicated in Augusta, the old church in Galveston was being leveled by the sea.
