Michigan Has a Waterfall the Color of Root Beer

Deep in the eastern Upper Peninsula, near the appropriately named town of Paradise, the Tahquamenon River takes a dramatic 50-foot plunge over a ledge that’s nearly 200 feet wide. The Upper Tahquamenon Falls is one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi River — and the largest in Michigan.

But the wild part is the color. The water is a deep amber-brown, and as it crashes down it throws up foamy tan froth that looks exactly like a giant root beer float. Locals even call it “Root Beer Falls.” Relax — it’s perfectly clean. The color comes from tannins, natural compounds that leach out of the cedar swamps upstream, basically steeping the river like a giant pot of tea.

A quick honesty note, because we like to get things right on this porch: you’ll often hear the Upper Falls called the “second-largest waterfall east of the Mississippi,” while other sources say “third.” The Michigan DNR itself plays it safe, describing it as “one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi River.” The DNR says a maximum flow of more than 50,000 gallons of water per second has been recorded at the Upper Falls — though park staff note the average flow most of the year is closer to about 7,000 gallons per second.

About four miles downstream, the Lower Falls splits into five smaller cascades around an island you can reach by rowboat. The whole thing sits inside Tahquamenon Falls State Park, Michigan’s second-largest state park.