From the town's beginning, a ferry or a bridge stood near this site, and county residents traveling to and from the courthouse in Urbanna long complained about the slow-moving ferry across the creek. After county citizens voted in 1849 to move the county seat from Urbanna to Saluda, partly because of the slow-moving ferry, the loss of the courthouse led several Urbanna businessmen to pursue a bridge along the colonial ferry path across from Rosegill into town. On August 7, 1858, they formed the Urbanna Toll Bridge Company to build and operate a toll bridge, and in 1859 the first one-lane bridge was completed with a draw and a wide passing lane near its center. In 1896 it was replaced by the town's first two-lane free bridge. The Virginia Department of Transportation took Urbanna Bridge into the highway system in 1928, and local carpenter and boatbuilder Fred Ward was the bridge builder. The bridge was widened in 1939 and rebuilt with a steel swing draw. The concrete bridge standing here today was completed by the state in 1957 and in 2001 was named the Beryl R. Newman Memorial Bridge in honor of Newman, who won the Medal of Honor on January 15, 1945, for heroics in World War II and later operated a seafood business in town where the town marina now stands.