Going from South to North:
1923,2013 Suspension: (Archived Bridge Hunter returns 500; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; HAER; Satellite)1906 Willard Munger Trail: (Bridge Hunter; Satellite)
1923,2013 Jay Cooke Swinging Bridge
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| MINN,9-SILBRO,1--1 1. GENERAL VIEW LOOKING SOUTHEAST - Jay Cooke State Park, Pedestrian Suspension Bridge, Minnesota Highway 210, crossing St. Louis River, Thomson, Carlton County, MN |
"Built 1923; destroyed by flood 2012; restored and reopened 2013" [BridgeHunter_1923]
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| Photo after rebuilding by mprnews via BridgeHunter_1923 |
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| Peter Millunzi, Oct 2021 |
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| Minnesota Field Guide posted Jay Cooke State Park sits southwest of Duluth where the St. Louis River drops through a gorge of tilted slate and greywacke, and the rock formations there look unlike anything else in Minnesota. The beds run nearly vertical, jagged fins of dark stone angled up out of the riverbed at sharp angles, and the water rips through the gaps between them in a churning mess of whitewater. That rock is around 1.9 billion years old. It started as flat layers of mud and sand on an ancient seafloor, then got compressed and shoved upward by tectonic forces until the layers stood on end. The river has been cutting down through them ever since. Walk the shoreline and you are looking at geology that predates most of the continent. The Swinging Bridge is the park's signature. A suspension footbridge built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934, hanging directly over the roughest stretch of the gorge, and yes, it moves under you. It has been rebuilt more than once, most dramatically after the June 2012 flood when a massive rain event blew out the deck and left the cables dangling. It reopened in 2013 and remains the thing everybody photographs. The park was created in 1915 when the St. Louis River Power Company donated about 2,350 acres. It carries the name of Jay Cooke, the Philadelphia financier who bankrolled the Northern Pacific Railway and whose 1873 collapse helped touch off a national panic. The park now runs to more than 8,800 acres. Fifty miles of trails wind through it, including a long stretch of the Superior Hiking Trail that begins here and heads north toward Canada. The Willard Munger State Trail runs paved along one edge. Silver Creek, Oldenburg Point and the Carlton Trail offer completely different terrain within a few miles of each other. The forest here is transitional, where northern boreal species meet southern hardwoods, so you get pine and spruce sharing ground with maple and basswood. That mix makes October worth the drive on its own. Below the gorge the river slows and widens toward the estuary that eventually opens into Lake Superior at Duluth. Above it, the water is loud enough that people on the bridge have to raise their voices. |
This shows the uplift of the layered rock.
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| Laura Schumacker commented on the above post May [2026] |
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| Jason Franklin, Aug 2022 |
1906 Willard Munger Trail Bridge
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| 2015 photo by John Marvig via BridgeHunter_1906 |
It is pin connected.
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| 2015 photo by John Marvig via BridgeHunter_1906 |
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| Jen Deblieck, Sep 2025 |
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| F Scott, Sep 2023 |
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| john wilen, Jun 2020 |
The dam is in the left background.
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| john wilen, Jun 2020 |
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| Street View, Aug 2025 |
1907 Thompson Dam
In addition to the big spillway on the left that dumps water into the original gorge, there is a smaller one on the right.
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| Street View, Aug 2025 |
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| Satellite |
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| mphydro The 2012 flood that damaged the Jay Cooke Bridge also damaged this hydropower plant. It was back online in 2014. [This source says 120mw is the output of their 11 hydropower plants and that this plant generates 72mw.] |
This was Jun 27, 2024.
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| Alison Gimpel posted St Louis River at Thomson Dam Alison Gimpel Northland Photography |
The 2012 flood was 50kcfs after 10" of rain whereas the 2024 flow was 20kcsfs. [PineCountyNews])
The water discharge made it easy to find the hydropower plant. It looks like it has three units and just one of them is running.
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| Satellite |
This video is about the rocks, not why there are two spillways. He considers the Grand Canyon to be boring compared to these rocks.
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| 17:46 video @ 17:41 Geology of the Thomson Dam spillway, Minnesota |
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