Washington and Lee University is a private liberal arts university in Lexington, Virginia. Established in 1749 as the Augusta Academy, the university is among the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States.
Washington and Lee's 325-acre campus sits at the edge of Lexington and abuts the campus of the Virginia Military Institute in the Shenandoah Valley region between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Allegheny Mountains. The campus is approximately 50 miles northeast from Roanoke, 140 miles west from the state capital of Richmond, and 180 miles inland southwest from the national capital at Washington, D.C.
Washington and Lee was originally a small classical school. It was founded as the Augusta Academy by Scots-Irish Presbyterian pioneers, though the university has never claimed any sectarian affiliation. In 1796, shortly before the end of his second term as U.S. president, George Washington endowed the struggling academy with a gift of stock, one of the largest gifts to an educational institution at that time.