Mill Ends Park

…Continued from Portland Fire & Rescue Central Fire Station.

Mill Ends Park on September 10, 2008

Dick Fagan (1911-1969) was a journalist for the Oregon Journal newspaper when it was located in the former Portland Public Market building. From his desk he could look down at the corner of Front Avenue and Taylor Street, where he could see a hole in the median strip for a utility hole that was never installed. Fagan imagined the hole as a tiny park for Leprechauns, and in his "Mill Ends" column in the paper described a variety of events in the park, presided over by head Leprechaun Patrick O'Toole.

Dick Fagan at Mill Ends Park
Photo courtesy of the Oregon Journal

Mill Ends Park, which measures 24 inches in diameter or 452.16 square inches in area, was dedicated by the City of Portland as an official city park in 1976, and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Smallest Park. A marker 38 feet west of the park was given by the Friends of Dick Fagan and the True Believers in Patrick O'Toole.

This concludes the original content of my PORTLAND PLACES: Tom McCall Waterfront Park page. To see additional blog entries about Portland, click on the Portland label.