The building was generally rectangular in plan, the main portion two stories in height, the kitchen a one-story unit in the rear. Two main towers with low pitched roofs flanked the entrance and four low towers with steep pyramidal roofs marked the corners. The main entrance was through a great arch which sprang from two large towers at either side.  Low, open arcades at the side of either tower, full-arched windows and an open colonnade in the second story, classic belt courses of brick and stone--all of these and other details gave the mess hall a Romanesque character seldom achieved in a relatively small building.  From the date of its erection until the time of the erection of the Memorial Student Center fifty-odd years later, no other major campus structure measured up architecturally to this old building.

   Interestingly, the building was never formally named and was, during its fourteen years of existence, known simply as the "Mess Hall." At some point in its life the porches on the ends were enclosed to increase the seating capacity to over 1,000. Until it was destroyed in 1911, the Mess Hall was acknowledged as the largest dining hall in the state. Yet it was more than a place where the cadets ate their three meals a day. 

It quickly became a center of campus social life. Campus visitors and guests were frequently invited to dine with the Corps of Cadets. Here the students, faculty and former students held dances, banquets and important meetings. They were indeed grand affairs.
   An article in The Battalion, the A&M student newspaper, describing the commencement ball of 1898 provides something of the flavor of the times. "The commencement ball given by the cadets on Tuesday evening was beyond doubt the swellest and grandest affair of its kind ever seen at College. The new mess hall with its large windows, long verandas and spacious hall afforded sufficient room for the unusually large crowd in attendance. 
The hall was devoid of decorations, and they would have been superfluous, as the green tinted walls and the highly varnished ceiling reflected the brilliancy of fifty-four electric lights, combined with the beautiful costumes of the ladies and the evening dress of the gentlemen, with the flash of uniforms to make one of the most beautiful and imposing sights ever witnessed."
   Sadly, at 5:30 on the morning of November 11, 1911, an accidental kitchen fire burned the stately structure to the ground in a matter of hours. A pan of grease on one of the enormous ranges erupted in flame, instantaneously igniting accumulations within the vent hood above. From there the flames quickly spread to the rest of the building. Even the heroic firefighting efforts of the entire Corps of Cadets could do nothing to prevent the flames from spreading. By 8 a.m., the castle-like structure was gone. There would never be another like it.