In its long history, Novi Grad was being destroyed and rebuilt for more than 20 times. This town, the first written documents of which appeared in 1280 according to the French historian Charles Diehl, was for many years the meeting point of eastern and western world.

The town moved from one river bank to another for three times, and the preserved maps and drawings indicate 20 different locations of the town. Once it was built on Kulsko hill, another time along the rivers Una and Sana, and then again on the same hill, and finally at the confluence of Sana with Una.

There is a copy in the Town Museum of the Charter of the noble family of Babonić from Blagaj, which dates from 1280, and whose original is kept in the state archives in Budapest. According to the Charter, the Kulsko brdo fortress was named Castrum Novum (Serbian: Novi Grad; English: New Town). According to the old graphics Novi Grad is a fortress with a small four-storey tower, a bastion, a defensive rampart and two buildings: one for the crew and the other for the nobility. The fortress, according to historians’ evaluations, was built in 1250 on the ruins of a Roman watchtower to experience the first destruction in the XVI century, during the culmination of the Turkish incursions into Pounje. In every new battle the town was destroyed but always rebuilt and rose from the ashes, like the phoenix.

In 1895, during the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the city was named Novi Grad. Large wooden bridges crossed the rivers Una and Sana, which the citizens, especially firefighters, had to defend from the raging spring and autumn water during each flood. For these reasons, a large jetty was built on Una in 1906, which soon became one of the symbols of the city on Una and Sana.

Novi Grad had the first railway station on the first Bosnian – Herzegovinian railway line in 1872, which gave it significant cultural and economic advantages compared to other places in Krajina.