Founded in 1897 as the Northwestern Territorial Normal School, NWOSU is the reason Alva is more than a wheat-and-cattle town. About 2,000 students keep the local cafes, theatre, and museum running through the academic year. The campus has a clutch of attractive older buildings: Science Hall (1908) and Herod Hall both date from the school's first decades.
It is worth a walk if you are killing time before driving on, especially when classes are in session and the lawns are full.