File:Robert Lee Madison Grave, St. David's in-the-Valley Episcopal Graveyard, Cullowhee, NC - 53421265679.jpg

English: Robert Lee Madison was born in 1867, and in 1889, came to Cullowhee to establish an experimental rural school known as the Cullowhee Academy, which was initially located in a three-room wood-frame building between the Steam Plant and Breese Gymnasium. The school grew from an academy into the Cullowhee Normal and Industrial School in 1905, with the completion of a more substantial two-story brick building at the present site of Madison Hall, and in 1925, became the Cullowhee State Normal School, with the separation of the college program from the high school program, with the high school program becoming a public high school, known as Cullowhee High School. In 1929, the school further evolved into the Western Carolina Teachers College, which remained the name of the school until 1953, with the programs offered by the school focusing heavily on the training of teachers. During this time, the campus expanded massively due to an infusion of resources by the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Public Works Administration (PWA), which sponsored the construction of many new buildings, greatly increasing the facilities of the college. In 1953, the institution became Western Carolina College, and in 1967, after being designated a regional university by the North Carolina State Legislature, it became Western Carolina University, which became a member of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. Madison lived until 1954, watching his fledgling experimental rural school grow into a state college.