Historic Saugatuck Township developed from a wilderness settled in the early 1830's into a river-centered community linked with Saugatuck, Douglas, New Richmond, and the vanished mill town of Singapore near the mouth of the Kalamazoo River. Vast white pine forests supported a lumber industry whose timber was cut, floated, milled, and shipped by schooner, while stands of white oak sustained Saugatuck shipbuilding for fifty years. By 1875 lumbering had given way to peach growing, with orchards spread across the countryside and Douglas once containing 10,000 peach trees, and the Douglas mill then prospered for forty years by making fruit baskets. River crossing near here began with a ferry, then shifted to a bridge built in 1871 a half mile southwest, with a drawbridge section later replaced by a swing bridge in 1906, followed by the Blue Star span in 1936 and the I-196 freeway bridge in 1964. Travel to Allegan once went by stagecoach and wagon, but riverboats offered a more scenic route and were further encouraged after the railroad reached New Richmond in 1871, although fluctuating water levels limited lasting success. For a hundred years visitors have come to enjoy the lake breeze, fish the Kalamazoo, and appreciate the distinctive history of Saugatuck.