Qualla: Judge C. R. Magney State Park

Judge C. R. Magney State Park: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. People have thrown ping pong balls into the Devil's Kettle. They have dropped sticks, dye, and GPS trackers. According to local legend, someone once pushed an entire car into the hole, though given that no road comes within miles of the spot, skeptics have reasonably dismissed that claim. For decades, every object that entered the Devil's Kettle vanished. Half the Brule River splits around a rock outcrop, and the eastern half tumbles over a conventional waterfall. The western half pours into a massive pothole in the volcanic rock and disappears. Where does it go? That question made Judge C. R. Magney State Park one of the most talked-about geological curiosities in the upper Midwest -- and the answer, when it finally came in 2017, was both satisfying and slightly anticlimactic.

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Judge C. R. Magney State Park: The River That Eats Itself

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit August Schwerdfeger, CC BY 4.0. The Brule River drops steeply through its final stretch inside the park, producing several waterfalls and cascades before reaching Lake Superior. At Devil's Kettle Falls, the river encounters a rhyolite rock formation that splits the flow. The eastern channel drops in a standard ...

Image: August Schwerdfeger | CC BY 4.0

Judge C. R. Magney State Park: Eleven Parks for the North Shore

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY 2.0. The park bears the name of Clarence R. Magney, a former mayor of Duluth and justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court who championed the creation of state parks along Lake Superior's North Shore. His advocacy led to the establishment of eleven parks and scenic waysides along this st...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY 2.0

Judge C. R. Magney State Park: A Jazz-Age Lodge and the Crash

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Just outside the park stands the Naniboujou Club Lodge, a remnant of ambitions that collapsed with the stock market. The exclusive club attracted nearly 600 members and completed its lodge in July 1929. The plans called for a sprawling complex along the Lake Superior shoreline, w...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Judge C. R. Magney State Park: Wolves, Moose, and the Darkest Skies

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The park's significant elevation change supports a rich variety of wildlife. Timber wolves and moose roam the remote northern sections, alongside black bears, red foxes, and martens. Broad-winged hawks and barred owls patrol the canopy, while migrating raptors pass through season...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Judge C. R. Magney State Park: Into the Kettle of Story

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Devil's Kettle has swallowed more than water and ping pong balls -- it has consumed the imagination of novelists, screenwriters, and storytellers. Chuck Logan set scenes of his crime novel The Big Law at the falls in 1998. The 2009 horror film Jennifer's Body invented an enti...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0