Rainbow Falls Provincial Park was developed in 1951 by the Rossport Conservation Club, and it was run under the named "Whitesand Park" for 8 years, with campsites and all. In 1959, it was handed over to the Department of Lands and Forests, who opened it as Rainbow Falls Provincial Park the very next year. It featured 6 campgrounds (Selim, Whitesand, Lakeside, Maggie, Back 40, and Old Hewitson), and was moderately popular. Unfortunately, 2 of these campgrounds, Back 40 and Old Hewitson, were closed, and replaced by the smaller New Hewitson Campground near East Beach. Rainbow Falls park itself has remained largly the same ever since. The last thing I noted was the disappearance of Christina Calayca in August 2007. But I don't want to dampen the mood, so just go to this link if you're interested.
According to this link, the falls were given their name because of the colourful rocks, moss, and lichen surrounding them. A more interesting story is the different names of the campgrounds. Each campground is named after a name of the river - yes, there was that many.
- Hewitson Campground - this is the current river name
- Whitesand Campground - old river name, derived from the lake that the river starts at
- Selim Campground - informal name used because a nearby railway siding was given this name
- Maggie Campground - derived from the word "maggot". There was a battle at the rivermouth at Lake Superior, and when surveyors found the bodies, they were being decomposed by maggots. Ontario Parks understandably thought "Maggot" was an unappealing campground name, so they went with "Maggie".
There's two outliers, being:
- Lakeside Campground, because they ran out of river names. This one's on the lake.
- The former Back 40 Campground, given that name because it was far away from the rest of the park (this is where the rowdy folk would go).
