The railroad reached Ridgely in 1867, when the place had only two houses, the Vernon property and the Ridgely Hotel. To bring the railroad there, Thomas Bell gave land listed as Ridgely Station for right of way to lay tracks and for a railroad station site. For the first two decades, the area remained largely undeveloped, but from 1888 to 1918 entrepreneurs and the railroad together helped create a model American town. A Fruit Growers Association and Exchange and a Regional Board of Trade were established, Ridgely became known as the Strawberry Capital of the Nation, and by its peak the town had grown to 13 factories, 6 warehouses, and numerous other businesses, with as many as four passenger trains and four freight trains serving it. In the 1920s, the widespread use of automobiles and the trucking industry began to hurt both railroad traffic and Ridgely's industries. By 1935 train service had fallen to one run per day each way, in 1949 passenger service ended and was replaced by Red Star Bus Lines as part of a broader move to abandon unprofitable passenger feeder lines, and freight service ended in 1976.