Unlike most towns, Ridgely did not "just grow" - it was planned before a single house was built. It was planned not as a country town, but as a city - a large, beautiful prosperous city, with a railroad to the north and the Choptank River to the south, laid out with wide streets and avenues, with parks and boulevards, factories and stores and a busy riverfront with docks and shipyards. It was a dream..... a noble one.

The Town of Ridgely was founded in the post Civil War land speculation and railroad boom that rolled across the Delmarva Peninsula in the 1860's. With the end of the Civil War, northern railroads were able to continue their expansion plans, and investors and merchants went looking for new markets and sources of supplies for the growing urban markets. The land around the present day community of Ridgely was purchased in 1867 by the Maryland and Baltimore Land Association from Thomas Bell and the Rev. Greenbury W. Ridgely, for whom the town is named. In the spring of 1867, the town proprietors brought in Mr. J.J. Sickler, a Civil Engineer from Philadelphia, to lay out a plat of the city. With the plan completed, the Land Association began construction and the first year saw the erection of four buildings, including a railroad station, hotel and two private residences. One residence was constructed by James K. Saulsbury as a combined store and residence, known today as the Ridgely House, houses the town offices.