Vienna, MD

Vienna sits on a high bend of the Nanticoke River in Dorchester County, where U.S. 50 crosses the water and the town’s main street carries Eastern Shore traffic. The 2020 census counted 270 residents. The site was part of a Nanticoke world before European settlement; Kuskarawaok, the emperor’s village, was near Vienna. The town was formally founded in 1706, and a ferry crossed the Nanticoke from 1671 until a bridge replaced it in 1828. Trade, shipbuilding, tobacco, and a 1768 customs district made the river crossing matter well beyond the town’s size.

War and transportation kept leaving marks. British forces raided Vienna during the Revolution and the War of 1812, when a waterfront stone wall was built from ship ballast and fitted for cannons. A railroad crossed the Nanticoke in 1894, and a coal-fired generating plant arrived in 1926. Today the river remains part of the town’s routine: the waterfront park, town events, and a public boat ramp put the Nanticoke back into view, while nearby Nanticoke River public lands support boating, fishing, birding, and hiking. Vienna is still a highway-and-river town, with its old trading position visible in the streets and shoreline.