The location is today occupied by a shipping port and industrial park.

[2] The location was originally known as "Wood Yard" and "Old Pride's Point", and was a place where steamboats would stop during the 1840s to load fuel-wood harvested from the dense forests near the river.

[2] B. J. Martin built the first railroad in Bolivar County from Riverton to Bogue Phalia, approximately 8 mi (13 km) east.

[5] Charles T. Christmas, a former slave from Riverton, patented a bailing press in 1880 which made cotton bales more compact, and therefore cut shipping costs.

[2] During the late 1970s, the United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed a 2.7 mi (4.3 km)-long channel running southwest from the Riverton location to the Mississippi River.