Since the 2010s, several of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed by vandals, and the company has installed security cameras and taken other measures to keep trespassers off the property.

[3] In the early 1890s, Jacob Tome (1810–1898)—a wealthy railroad and timber magnate who had served in the Maryland State Senate—decided to open a nonsectarian college preparatory school for boys.

He founded the Tome School for Boys on Main Street in Port Deposit, Maryland, on the east bank of the Susquehanna River.

[5] Following a design competition in 1900, supervised by Peabody, the Board of Trustees selected designs in the then-popular Beaux-arts architectural style by partner architects William Boring (1859–1937) and Edward Lippincott Tilton (1861–1933), co-designers of the U.S. immigration station at Ellis Island in New York Harbor.

[9] Erika L. Quesenbery, author of United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge, wrote that Memorial Hall was the school's "centerpiece".

Other rivalries also were versus the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, the mathematics/science/technology public high school, established 1883 that was also City College's arch-rival.

[6] After thriving for several decades, the Jacob Tome Institute fell into difficult financial straits during the Great Depression of the 1930s and closed in 1941.

The institute's buildings were renovated for use by the Naval Academy Preparatory School to prepare future midshipmen for the U.S.

[5] Meanwhile, the Tome School moved back to its original site on Main Street in Port Deposit.

[15] The Bainbridge Development Corporation has since installed a security system that is "fully wireless and solar powered" with "cameras at key points on the property, monitoring 24/7."

The curriculum provides a broad liberal arts education in an environment emphasizing academic success, high standards of personal behavior, and full participation in school life.