Maedgen Elementary was opened in 1955 and  named after Charles E. Maedgen, founder of the Lubbock National Bank.  Charles grew up on his family farm and attended Troy Public School. He graduated in 1904 from Texas A&M, where he majored in agronomy, and worked his way through school by collecting and delivering laundry. After graduating he and his brother established Citizens Exchange Bank at which Troy worked until 1935, owned and operated a gin and were engaged in the cotton and grain business.    

 In 1917, Maedgen moved his family - wife, Minta, and children, Charles Ernest Jr. and Mary Ellis - to Lubbock. In June of that year, he established Security State Bank and Trust Company, which purchased the Farmers' National Bank in 1920. Five years later the name was changed to Lubbock National Bank.

 In 1928, he helped secure congressional legislation to establish a federal district court in the city. From 1920 to 1932, he served on the Lubbock school board, during which time several new school buildings were built. He was president in 1931 of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce and Board of City Development and was a leader in the bond-issue campaign that provided 100 miles of paved roads in Lubbock County at a cost of $3 million. Maedgen served on committees that obtained for Lubbock the Fort Worth and Denver Railway, Texas Tech and the city's first airline service.

 By 1939, he had formed the Lubbock National Company and had begun construction of a new eight-story bank building that was completed in October 1940. He was a charter member of the Lubbock Kiwanis Club and country club and was selected in 1940 to be president of the Panhandle-South Plains Fair Association. He also helped establish the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and worked for the construction of the Museum of Texas Tech University. He served four years as president of the West Texas Museum Association. In January 1951 he became chairman of the board at Lubbock National Bank and was succeeded as president by his son, Charles, Jr. In January 1952 he set up the Charles E. Maedgen Foundation, which supported an Institute of Americanism at Texas Tech in cooperation with the history department for three years. In 1955 the funds of the Maedgen Foundation were transferred to McMurry College in Abilene, where Maedgen held membership on the board of trustees. In 1957 the college awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree, and later a gift made possible the construction of McMurry's new administration building, which was named in his honor.