The Weld County Court House was designed by architect William N. Bowman, with construction beginning in 1915 and dedication celebrated on July 4, 1917. The building cost $414,000 and was financed entirely by taxes without a bond issue. Unique to Weld County, it is predominantly a four-story Classical Revival structure with outside walls, cornices, and columns of Indiana limestone and terra cotta, bronze east main entrance doors and most lighting fixtures, and a grand staircase leading to the upper floors. Designed with an eye for permanence, it was made virtually fireproof without wood except for staircase handrails and balustrades. The court house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Weld County was one of the original 17 counties created by the Territorial Legislature in 1861, and Greeley became the county seat in 1877 after a series of hotly contested and highly controversial elections. The first structure to serve as court house was a cottonwood log cabin now located at Centennial Village Museum, and the second courthouse, built in 1883 with a Mansard-style roof, was later razed to make room for the present structure.