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Gooseberry Falls State Park

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Lower and  upper Gooseberry Falls

Lower and upper Gooseberry Falls. Photograph by Yinan Chen, July 11, 2013. Public domain.

One of Minnesota’s most popular nature areas, Gooseberry Falls was the first of eight state parks developed along Lake Superior’s North Shore. Nearly all of its buildings were constructed by employees of the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1934 and 1941. The collection of stone and log structures presents a distinctively North Shore interpretation of the National Park Service’s Rustic Style of architecture, complementing the park’s river, waterfalls, woodlands, and lakeshore.

The dark, fine-textured basalt rock that characterizes the North Shore of Lake Superior was deposited 1.1 billion years ago as volcanic lava flow. Ice Age glaciers, along with wind, water, and the weight of the lava itself, created a depression that became the cliffs and bed of Lake Superior. The last of the glaciers etched into the basalt to define the course of the Gooseberry River and its waterfalls.

An enduring controversy surrounds the name of the Gooseberry River. Some say Ojibwe people named it Shabonimikani-zibi (Place of the Gooseberries) for the gooseberries that grew nearby. Others claim it was named Riviere des Groseilliers to honor Frenchman Medard Chouart, Sieur Des Groseilliers, who explored Lake Superior’s North Shore in 1659–1660 with his brother-in-law, Pierre-Esprit Radisson. (Groseille translates to gooseberry or currant.) The French explanation carries the weight of written history, since the river was labeled with Des Groseilliers’s name on the earliest French map of the area in the late 1600s, some fifty years before the Ojibwe were known to have lived on the North Shore. It is possible, though, that the Ojibwe hunted and fished in the area while completing their migration from North America’s East Coast.

Throughout the peak fur trading years (ca. 1679–1847), transportation, commerce, and development largely bypassed the Gooseberry River. In the late nineteenth century, trout fishing was popular in the rivers along the lakeshore, and logging companies started to move into the Gooseberry River area. In 1899 Wisconsin timberland speculators William F. Vilas and John C. Knight purchased a 30,000-acre tract of land, including the Gooseberry River watershed, and leased it to Thomas Nestor of Ashland, Wisconsin. Nestor clear cut the trees, rafting logs across Lake Superior to mills in Wisconsin and Michigan. By the time Nestor’s lease expired in 1909, both Vilas and Knight had died, leaving the property to Vilas’s estate.

With the growing popularity of automobiles and tourism during the 1910s and 1920s, adventurous Minnesotans took to the state’s rough, narrow roads to explore the North Shore. In 1925, the Minnesota Department of Highways completed two major projects that drew even greater tourism to Gooseberry Falls. One was rerouting Trunk Highway 1 (later designated Trunk Highway 61), bringing the still-unpaved roadway out from the backwoods to provide visitors with panoramic views of Lake Superior. The second project was the construction of a bridge over the Gooseberry River.

The increase of automobile traffic led businessmen from nearby Two Harbors to propose that the Minnesota Legislature purchase 640 acres from the Vilas estate. They envisioned a park encompassing the river’s five waterfalls and extending to the lakeshore. The legislature approved the site as a game refuge in 1933, to be managed jointly by the Department of Highways and the Department of Conservation. In a Depression-era economy, no funds were appropriated for development.

A year later, however, the federal government created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Administered by the National Park Service (NPS), the CCC was charged with developing an infrastructure of roads, trails, and buildings at the Gooseberry Falls site. Under the NPS’s authority, all major structures were designed in the Rustic Style (sometimes called Parkitecture), reflecting the natural features of a park’s vicinity. At Gooseberry Falls, that meant using local stone and timber, providing a uniquely colorful construction palette. CCC workers quarried red granite near Duluth’s College of St. Scholastica. Blue, brown, and black granite came from East Beaver Bay, north of the park. Sand was brought in from Flood Bay near Two Harbors, and logs were hauled from Cascade River State Park, fifty-five miles north.

Workers built more than eighty structures and facilities for the park, including a water tower, shelters, cabins, stone steps, fireplaces, and drinking fountains. The most impressive structure was the Stone Concourse, known as Castle in the Park, a 300-foot retaining wall which provided parking and a viewing area.

The park, which now comprises 1,662 acres, offers hiking, camping, picnicking, and lakefront access, but the main attraction continues to be the park’s five waterfalls. Gooseberry Falls is designated as one of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ sixteen “destination parks,” offering modern facilities and naturalist-led interpretive programs, designed for heavy use and attracting visitors from throughout the state. Eighty-eight of the park’s CCC/rustic-style structures were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

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Anderson, Rolf T. “Gooseberry Falls State Park, CCC Rustic Style Historic Resources.” National Register of Historic Places nomination form, September 1989. State Historic Preservation Office, St. Paul.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93200557

Benson, David R. Stories in Log and Stone: The Legacy of the New Deal in Minnesota State Parks. St. Paul: State of Minnesota, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Recreation, 2002.

Conradi, Linda. “Gooseberry Falls.” Zenith City Online, undated.
http://zenithcity.com/archive/north-south-shore/gooseberry-falls

Dierckins, Tony. Duluth: An Urban Biography. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2020.

Heilbron, Bertha L. “The State Historical Convention of 1938.” Minnesota History 19, no. 4 (1938): 308–317.
http://collections.mnhs.org/mnhistorymagazine/articles/19/v19i03p308-317.pdf

LeMay, Konnie. “Rockin’ the Rift, the Billion-Year-Old Spit that Made Us.” Lake Superior, July 30, 2018.
https://www.lakesuperior.com/the-lake/402rockin-the-rift-the-billion-year-old-split-that-made-us

Long, Barbara Beving, Historian. “Bridge No. 3585, Gooseberry Falls State Park: Spanning Gooseberry River at Trunk Highway 61.” Historic American Engineering Record, Rocky Mountain Regional Office, National Park Service, Denver, Colorado, March 1996.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/mn/mn0500/mn0547/data/mn0547data.pdf

Miller, James D., Mark A. Jirsa, and Phillip Leversedge. “Lake Superior—Born of Fire and Ice.” Geology of Minnesota Parks. Minnesota Geological Survey, 2000.
https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/93850/24-Tetteguche.pdf

[Minnesota Department of Natural Resources]. “Development and Acquisition Status: Gooseberry Falls State Park,” October 26, 1989.
https://www.leg.mn.gov/docs/pre2003/other/900251/Volume19.pdf

“MNDOT Historic Roadside Development Structures Inventory: Gooseberry Falls Concourse.” Historic Roadside Development Structures on Minnesota Trunk Highways, 1998.
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/roadsides/historic/files/iforms/LA-SVC-046.pdf

Nute, Grace Lee. The Voyageur’s Highway. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002 (reprint).

Radzak, Lee. The View From Split Rock: A Lighthouse Keeper’s Life. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2021.

Schwartz, G. M. “The Geology of Gooseberry State Park.” Geology of Minnesota Parks 4 . Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 1948.
https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/93600/04-Gooseberry.pdf

Smith, Doug. “Face Lift for the Falls.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 14, 1996.

Sommer, Barbara W. Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008.

System Plan: Charting a Course for the Future. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Trails, February 2019.
https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/input/mgmtplans/pat/system_plan/system_plan.pdf

Related Images

Lower and  upper Gooseberry Falls
Lower and  upper Gooseberry Falls
Overlook at lower Gooseberry Falls
Overlook at lower Gooseberry Falls
Gooseberry Falls and bridge
Gooseberry Falls and bridge
Map of Gooseberry Falls State Park Historic District
Map of Gooseberry Falls State Park Historic District
Map of Gooseberry Falls State Park
Map of Gooseberry Falls State Park
Aerial view of Gooseberry Falls State Park
Aerial view of Gooseberry Falls State Park
Gooseberry Falls
Gooseberry Falls
Bird’s-eye view of Gooseberry Falls State Park
Bird’s-eye view of Gooseberry Falls State Park
Gooseberry Falls State Park in autumn
Gooseberry Falls State Park in autumn
View from Gitchi Gummi Trail
View from Gitchi Gummi Trail
Gooseberry Falls
Gooseberry Falls
Agate Beach
Agate Beach
Falls View Shelter (Bridgehead Refectory), Gooseberry Falls State Park
Falls View Shelter (Bridgehead Refectory), Gooseberry Falls State Park
Fifth Falls Shelter
Fifth Falls Shelter
Lady Slipper Lodge
Lady Slipper Lodge
Water tower
Water tower
Joseph N. Alexander Visitors’ Center
Joseph N. Alexander Visitors’ Center

Turning Point

In 1933, Two Harbors business owners propose that the area along the Gooseberry River be preserved as a state park. The Minnesota Legislature purchases 640 acres in the Gooseberry River basin and classifies it as a scenic game preserve, protecting the site from private development and making way for its designation as a state park.

Chronology

1600

Dakota and Cree people live in northern Minnesota. The Dakota live in areas previously occupied by their ancestors, who were part of the Woodland culture.

1659

Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, are the first Europeans to visit Lake Superior’s North Shore.

1825

By this year, Ojibwe people have explored the inlet ten miles northeast of Gooseberry Falls and named it Gagijikensikag. White Americans later come to know it as Beaver Bay.

1825

Small towns crop up along the North Shore as miners search for copper. The towns do not prosper.

1890s

Logging and commercial and recreational fishing move into the area north of Two Harbors, including the Gooseberry River watershed.

1899

William F. Vilas and John C. Knight, logging speculators, acquire about 30,000 acres north of Two Harbors, including land along both sides of the Gooseberry River.

1900–1909

Thomas Nestor of Ashland, Wisconsin, sets up lumbering headquarters alongside the Gooseberry River, builds a logging railroad to move logs to the lake, and clear cuts the forest.

1925

The Illinois Steel Bridge Company constructs a steel deck truss bridge over the Gooseberry River.

1933

The Minnesota Legislature purchases 640 acres on the Gooseberry River from the Vilas estate and authorizes it as a game preserve.

1934

The National Park Service charges the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with building a state park site at Gooseberry Falls; two CCC camps are established, and construction begins on roads, trails, and fences.

1936–1940

The largest structure in the park, the Concourse, is constructed. Also known as the Castle in the Park, the 300-foot retaining wall is topped by a parking area and overlook.

1937

Gooseberry Falls officially becomes a Minnesota state park on April 25. It is one of ten state parks established in 1937.

1937–1938

Workers expand the Gooseberry River bridge, widening the roadway and adding two sidewalks to accommodate pedestrian walkways.

1941

The CCC camp at Gooseberry Falls is shut down after seven years of operation—the longest duration of any state park camp in Minnesota.

1989

CCC structures inside Gooseberry Falls State Park are listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 15 in recognition of their social, architectural, and recreational significance.

1996–1998

The roadway and entry to the park are restructured. The project adds a new visitors’ center with disability access and improved parking; replaces the bridge over the river; and repurposes the Concourse as the Gateway Plaza with interpretive information.