Beginning in 1825, trading posts established by Louis Campau at the mouth of the Rabbit River and at Mack’s Landing made the area a main waypoint for goods transferred along the Kalamazoo River. In 1836 John Allen came from Ann Arbor to Allegan County, mapped the first village in what would become Manilus Township, and employed Ralph Mann to oversee the development of Richmond City, named for Allen’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia. After that plan faded in 1837, Mann moved south one mile and built the area’s first hydro-powered wood mill, and a post office operated in Richmond from 1837 to 1839. James McCormick arrived in 1838 as the first settler, bought 160 acres, and began the area’s fruit farming industry. In 1839 Manilus Township was created by legislation, its first meeting was held at Ralph Mann’s home, John Allen was elected supervisor, and Ralph Mann was elected Justice of the Peace. During the 1840s, booming lumber and fruit industries drew more residents, including John Gidley, Jonathon Wade, Asa and Norman Bowker, and Thomas and Daniel Lamoureux. A first wooden bridge across the Kalamazoo River was built in 1842 and collapsed in 1849 under an ox-cart, and a post office opened in Manilus in 1843 and remained there until 1872, when it moved to the village of Richmond developed by H.F. Marsh; because another Richmond already existed in Michigan, the name was changed to New Richmond. A second wooden bridge was built in 1856 and collapsed in 1877 under a stagecoach. Railroad tracks reached New Richmond in 1871 when the Chicago & Michigan Lakeshore Railroad extended there to move goods to Lake Michigan shipping ports, later becoming the Pere Marquette Line. By 1874 Manilus Village had declined as Ralph Mann’s sawmill closed after destruction of the mill race, the tavern there burned, and the station at New Richmond became the center of activity. In 1879 the New Richmond Bridge was built as a swing bridge by the Milwaukee Iron Bridge Company at a cost of $5000 with a wooden deck and iron frame, and the railroad built a bridge beside it almost simultaneously. In the 1880s, dwindling lumber resources, the rise of coal fuel, and reduced demand for wood slowed industry, while surviving mills turned to hardwoods for West Michigan’s growing furniture industry. Sometime between 1915 and 1920, Paul Gamby is thought to have operated the swing bridge for the last time, after which its machinery became encased in rust. In 1976 Allegan County closed the bridge to vehicular traffic, and concerned citizens organized in response to demolition plans. In 1979 collaboration between that group and the County Road Commission reopened the bridge after renovation, marked by a parade of vintage cars, and the bridge was placed on the State Register of Historic Places. The bridge was closed again to vehicular traffic in 1997, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, received federal restoration funding in 2001, and its restoration was completed in 2004, after which it opened to pedestrian traffic only as the centerpiece of a new Allegan County park.