The world’s smallest park, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is in Portland, Oregon.
It’s called Mill Ends Park and it is a lonely patch of earth that barely measures 2 feet across, sitting in a sea of asphalt and traffic in downtown Portland.
In 1946 City of Portland municipal workers forgot to install a street lamp in a hole they had dug into SW Front Avenue.
The empty hole was in direct sight from the office window of a newspaper reporter, Dick Fagan. The scar in the landscape bothered him. So he did something gracious and filled in the hole with flowers and proclaimed it Mill Ends Park.
Fagan regaled his readers with the goings on at Mill Ends Park with visions carved from his wide imagination that served as commentary column on Portland political and social life.
There were also the occasional sightings of leprechauns which wasn’t unusual given Fagan’s Irish background.
The citizens of Portland quickly embraced Fagan’s Mill Ends Park.
Even in the 1940s Portland had a love of green spaces, big or small. On the big side Forest Park, one of Portland’s many green accomplishments, is a perfect example.
Forest Park is the largest urban park in the United States that sits within city limits. The Park has 50 miles of trails and over 30 miles of gated roadways for hiking and biking. The Park sits along the Tualatin mountains and is easily accessible from most Portland neighborhoods.
Portland is also the home to the International Rose Test Garden.
This unique Park was established as the Portland Rose Society in 1888. Roses became so popular in the city that by 1905 over 200 miles of Portland’s private homes had lined their curb sides with Roses.
In 1915 as World War 1 was ravaging Europe, Jesse Currey, a Rose hobbyist, convinced Portland’s civic officials to offer their Park facilities as a safe haven for Roses from Europe. Thousands of cultivars were sent to the city from European growers and carved a unique place in International Rose lore for Portland.
But it is the tiny Mill Ends Park that has a special place in the hearts and spirits of Portlanders.
Until his death in 1969 Dick Fagan entertained and informed the citizens of Oregon with tales from Mill Ends Park through his newspaper column. Every St. Patricks Day he held unique celebrations at the minuscule urban green space.
As for the Mill Ends leprechauns that Fagan often referred to in his columns there is another fact about Portland that might have to be considered.
The City is also the home to the most Micro Breweries per capita in the United States and the host City for the Oregon Beer Festival which attracts over 80 thousand people a year.
Dick Fagan had Irish in his blood.
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