 The Academy was founded in 1902 as Castle Heights School by David Mitchell, President of Cumberland University, also in Lebanon, and Isaac W. P. Buchanan, a mathematics professor there, together with A. W. Hooker and Laban Rice, an English professor who served as the school's headmaster and was later also President of Cumberland University.It was initially coeducational; it became a military preparatory school for boys in 1918 as a result of World War I.In 1928, Castle Heights Military Academy was struggling financially and was bought for $100,000 by Bernarr Macfadden; the Bernarr Macfadden Foundation operated it until 1974.