New Richmond began in 1836 when three eastern investors led by John Allen of Ann Arbor sought to establish a town in Allegan County on the north side of the Kalamazoo River near its confluence with the Rabbit River in Manlius Township. Allen, a Virginian, bought 2240 acres and planned a settlement called Richmond, named for Richmond, Virginia, centered on saw mills. He printed maps to attract settlers and investors, and after land was cleared a general store, houses, and a post office were established, but the venture failed in 1838 during the financial depression that followed the Panic of 1837, and the post office closed in 1839. In 1844 Ralph R. Mann, originally hired by Allen, moved a mile and a half south along what became Mann Creek and built a water-powered sawmill, damming the creek to create a long narrow mill pond. Around this new settlement, known as Manlius, Johnson Parsons built a store, John Roe opened a tavern, Randall Curtis started a tannery, and a post office opened in 1846 with Curtis as postmaster. In 1851 E.A. Fenn settled near Manlius, finding it a lively and promising village. An early wooden bridge across the Kalamazoo River built by Mann in 1842 was replaced in 1879 by an iron swing bridge whose center span pivoted to allow riverboat traffic and continued in that role until the 1920's; it remained open to vehicles until 1997 and was restored in 2005 for pedestrian use. The railroad reached Manlius Township in 1871, running alongside Mann Creek and the mill pond, and a depot was built near the settlement. H.F. Marsh then laid out a new village of Richmond south of the original site, and this community prospered and eventually surpassed Manlius. In 1872 the Manlius post office closed and another opened in the new settlement, but because another Richmond already existed in Michigan, the village became New Richmond. After Manlius declined, New Richmond became the principal railroad station and for 25 years the supply point for river communities between there and Lake Michigan, with connections important to Saugatuck and Douglas. Businesses and hotels opened in the early 1870s, including the Richmond House, stores operated by Capt. A.H. Coates, N.J. Sherman, H.F. Marsh, and Gilbert Lamoureux, and the Western Hotel run by the Lamoureux family. Stagecoaches to Saugatuck, lumbering, and a growing fruit farming industry helped the village prosper, and from the late 1800's into the late 1920's it became a popular tourist destination with as many as four hotels, steamboat service to Saugatuck and Douglas, and daily stagecoach service to Holland. Fires eventually destroyed the sawmills and several hotels, and over time little remained beyond a few houses, the post office, and the bridges. New Richmond gradually became a quiet community, and the last remaining hotel, after years of abandonment, was renovated in the late 1990's as the New Richmond House beside the former post office.