It includes Prairie School, Beaux Arts, and Classical Revival architecture.

It is significant as representing "the official effort of the State of North Dakota to care for its developmentally disabled citizens during the twentieth century, and ... for its association with Dr. Arthur Rufus Trado Wylie (1873-1941), superintendent during 1910-1933 and a leading figure nationally in the care of the developmentally disabled.

The agency is a division of the North Dakota Department of Human Services and was administratively merged with the North Dakota State Hospital in April, 2000 under a single superintendent, Alex Schweitzer.

The 1933 name change, from "Institution for the Feebleminded" to the "Grafton State School", incorporated the educational mission of the agency that was established in the original legislation; the agency opened for residents in May, 1904 and school began in September, 1904.

This article about a property in North Dakota on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.