Records span from 1890s to 1980s. Louis G. Morton, May 21, 1928-November 21, 2008, moved to CSilt, Colorado in 1960. Later that year he moved to Grand Junction, Colorado and taught sixt grade at Lowell Elementary School. In 1961 he became a teacher of American History at Central high school intul 1966. In 1966 he became an instructor of History and Political Science at Mesa State College, where he taught for 29 years. In 1991 Morton, with the help of Leon Daily, gathered materials to produce a book that detailed the history of Mesa College through recent years.

The Mesa College Colleection houses all of Morton and Daily's research that went into the two published works, The First Fifty Years and The First Sixy Five Years. It is unclear why Daily is uncredited on the books dispite helping research for them.

Grand Junction got its first inkling of a college in the 1920s. After competing and winning against Gunnison, Grand Junction was given the go-ahead to build a Junior College for the western slope of the state. In April of 1925 Mesa Junior College was established and ready for its first group of 39 students for the fall semester. A litle over 10 years later Mesa Junior College was renamed to Mesa College and maintaned its Junior College status until the 1970s.

In 1974 Mesa College began offering baccalaureate programs putting the first official four-year graduating class in 1978. In 1988 the school went through another renaming process and became Mesa State College to reflect the developments of the institution. In 1996 the school offered its first master's program. In 2011 the Board of Trustees and the State of Colorado officially renamed the institution Colorado Mesa University (CMU), and in 2023 CMUTech, formarly known as Western Colorado Community College (WCCC) joined the institution.

The documents housed in this collection are the beginning of the CMU archives.