Like many of the cities and villages on the Milwaukee River, Newburg formed around a hydropowered mill. In 1848, village founder Barton Salisbury built a dam on the river to power his feed and saw mills. While Salisbury died in a construction accident in 1849, one mill operated until 1903; the other closed in 1939. The dam was replaced and repaired several times, before finally being demolished in 2011–12.
