Ricketts was born in Elkton, Maryland on December 19, 1859. He was educated at Princeton University, earning both a B.Sc. (1881) and D.Sc. (1883), being a Fellow in Chemistry and a Fellow in Economic Geology. He then went to Colorado and began at the bottom in Leadville as mine surveyor and assayer, then foreman of a short-lived mine operation near Silverton, Colorado, and, finally, as a consultant and expert witness on geology for mine lawsuits in Leadville, Aspen and elsewhere. In 1887-1890 he served as Geologist for Wyoming Territory. In 1890 he was recruited by Dr. James Douglas of Phelps Dodge (PD) and began his long mining career in the Southwest borderlands.
