The more easterly of the two pedestrian bridges in the Royal River Park is built on old abutments for a trolley line which ran between Yarmouth and Freeport between 1906 and 1933.

On the western (or town) side of the river was a scythe and axe factory owned by Joseph C. Batchelder.

Six railroad spurs extended from the tracks running behind Main Street to the Forest Paper Company, traversing today's Royal River Park.

Rail cars delivered logs, coal, soda and chlorine to the mill and carried pulp away.

The mill burned in 1931, leaving charred remains on the site until the development of the Royal River Park in the early 1980s.

In 1971, the Marine Corps Reserve tore down the old factory, before a Navy demolition team used fourteen cases of dynamite to raze the remains.