The district represents part of the evolution of the college from the Colorado Normal School to the University of Northern Colorado.  

The SLW ranch complex consists of a ranch house, coal house, ice house, barn, corral, storage, and feeding areas.  The ranch house, a large, two-story frame dwelling over a stone cellar, was built in 1888 by Robert Hall for Lyulph Ogilvy. 

The Noffsinger House is associated with inventor and businessman, Fred P. Noffsinger (1885 – 1950), who contributed significantly to the agricultural industry of Weld County and the state of Colorado. 

The two-story wood frame Italianate style house is one of the few intact residences dating from the early years of the Union Colony established by Nathan Meeker in 1870.  Edwin S. Nettleton designed several early canals that brought critical irrigation water to the farmlands and urban homesteads of the colony. 

Nathan C. Meeker, founder of Union Colony, later known as Greeley, built the two-story adobe structure in 1870. 

Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed the 1929 Greeley depot.  Underwood is best known for the Rustic style buildings he designed for the Union Pacific and the National Park Service in Bryce Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon National Parks.

The Greeley Tribune newspaper operated out of this building from the completion of construction in 1929 until 1986.  The Tribune was the main source of information for the rural agricultural region in and around Greeley, providing not only local stories but also national and international news.  The newspaper saw significant expansion during its occupation of the building. 

The school is a combination of two building periods-1895, when the high school was constructed, and 1902, when the grade school building was added.  The 1895 building constructed on a stone and red sandstone foundation has pressed brick walls set in red mortar, with red sandstone trimmings.

The 1938 Greeley Junior High School is the oldest surviving junior high school in the community.  The Depression-era Public Works Administration, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, partially funded the school’s construction.

The 1930/1939 Greeley Ice and Storage Building is important as an early-twentieth century ice manufacturing and storage facility, providing the city of Greeley and surrounding areas with manufactured ice and cold storage for meat, poultry, and beverages, as well as storage for furniture, furs, and other items.  The company also supported area agricultural interests by supplying ice for railroad and truck transport of meat and produce.