Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand and Growers, who were calling the berries "melonettes", because the local name for the fruit, "Chinese gooseberry", had political connotations due to the Cold War, and to further distinguish it from real gooseberries, which are prone to a fungus called anthracnose. An American importer, Norman Sondag of San Francisco, complained that "melonettes" was as bad as "Chinese gooseberry" because melons and berries were both subject to high import tariffs, and instead asked for a short Maori name that quickly connoted New Zealand. In June 1959, during a meeting of Turners and Growers management in Auckland, Jack Turner suggested the name
Gooseberry River Company set up its headquarters at the mouth of the Gooseberry, and built a logging railroad running inland to harvest the thick pine stands in the region. The railway was removed by 1908, but when the Virginia & Rainy Lake Company began logging further inland, the Nestor grade was once again used to build a spur line to connect the project with the Duluth & Northern Minnesota Railway. In the upper reaches of the watershed of the Gooseberry and its tributaries, communities began to grow on the Alger Line. One, London, was located where the Alger Line passed over the