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 headwaters of the tributary Dago Creek at . A sleigh road connecting Two Harbors and Beaver Bay ran alongside the railway through the upper Gooseberry watershed. Logging and fire exhausted the pine by the 1920s, and loggers moved out of the region. The Alger Line ceased to operate in 1923 and London became a ghost town. A few houses were reported standing in the 1950s, but more modern reports claim only foundations remain. The site is now the subject of ghost stories. A bridge was built over the Gooseberry near the falls in 1922 to service Minnesota State Highway 61,