Mill Ends Park is the smallest urban park in the world. Located in a median strip on the SW Naito Parkway in Portland, Oregon, Mill Ends Park is a circle shaped plot of land 2 ft across. Built in 1948 as a site intended for a light post, Mill Ends began its life as a park when Dick Fagan, a columnist for the Oregon Journal planted flowers to replace the weeds and named it in his column.
In Feburary of 2006 the park was temporarily relocated to a planter outside the World Trade Center Portland some 80 feet away. The newly renovated park was rededicated in true Portland fashion on 16 March, 2007 with the Royal Rosarians, bagpipers, and the family of Dick Fagan in attendence.
Mill Ends Park Facts
- Mill Ends Park has been established as the only leprechaun colony west of Ireland.
- The park was officially dedicated on St Patrick’s Day in 1948.
- The Guinness Book of Records recognized the park as the world’s smallest in 1971.
- During the 2011 Occupy Portland protests one man was arrested for refusing to evacuate the park.
- There was once a small fence around the park in response to a complaint by the city of Burntwood, in England, that it was not a park because it did not have a fence.
