Before the Pennsylvania Railroad was built, only Henry Leaman's small farmhouse stood nearby. In 1835, Leaman built a hotel, and soon afterward a railroad station was established. A small village gradually grew, and by the 1880s Leaman Place had about a dozen houses, a telegraph office, and a common school. In 1845, residents of Paradise and Leacock petitioned for a bridge where the public highway from the Philadelphia & Columbia railroad to New Holland crossed the creek at Eckert's Mill. James C. Carpenter built the first bridge there in 1845 for $983.00. About fifty years later, that bridge was considered unsafe, often overflowed, and was dangerous for public travel. Elias McMellen rebuilt the worn bridge in 1893 for $2,431.00. The bridge was also known as Eshleman's Mill Bridge after the Eshleman family, who operated mills nearby, including Milton B. Eshleman's large three-story mill of the 1870s, once known as Evergreen Mills.