Portland's Weird Wednesday

Right in the middle of one of our busiest streets in downtown Portland sits the smallest park in the world.  It's true.  It's listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.  Not long ago, England tried to claim they had the word's smallest park, but nope.  It's us.

Mill Ends Park is not just roadside greenery to perk up a neighborhood street. It’s actually a park dedicated to leprechauns.  Local legend has it that a reporter wrote a series of columns about the country’s only leprechaun colony in 1947/48. See, the reporter, Dick Fagan, spotted one of the leprechauns digging a hole in the spot outside his window at the Oregon Journal newspaper and ran out.  He captured it!   Because he captured the leprechaun, he was granted a wish.  He said he wished he had a park of his own.

Now leprechauns are tricky.  Since Fagan had not specified a size for his park, the leprechaun gave Fagan the hole he had been digging when he was caught.  Fagan took what he could get.  He named it Mill Ends Park, after the column he wrote for the Journal. The two-foot long patch of ground became an official city park in 1976.  And as the only leprechaun colony outside of Ireland, it serves as the epicenter of Portland's St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

Fagan died in 1969 but his park is being cared for by many others.   It has taken on many different plants, foliage, flowers.  In 2013, Burntwood, England complained to Guinness that the park was too small to be a real park and that their park, Prince's Park, the smallest in the UK, should hold the world record because it has a fence around it.  In response, volunteers erected a fence around Mill Ends and stationed an armed guard in the park.


 Enjoy this video about the park by Humanwire correspondent Justin Wolfson as he interviews Mark Ross of The Portland Parks and Recreation Department:



Just continuing to keep Portland weird :)
peace~~~

A small patch of carefully landscaped land sits in the middle of a road in Portland, Oregon, but it’s not just roadside greenery to perk up a neighborhood street. It’s actually a park dedicated to leprechauns. Local legend says that a reporter wrote a series of columns about the country’s only leprechaun colony in 1947. The reporter, Dick Fagan, spotted one of the leprechauns digging a hole in the spot outside his window and captured it. He used his wish to get a park of his own, but the leprechaun tricked him and gave him the hole in the ground instead. The two-foot long patch of ground became an official city park in 1976 and serves as the epicenter of the town’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

Read More: 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Leprechauns | http://thefw.com/things-you-didnt-know-about-leprechauns/?trackback=tsmclip

A small patch of carefully landscaped land sits in the middle of a road in Portland, Oregon, but it’s not just roadside greenery to perk up a neighborhood street. It’s actually a park dedicated to leprechauns. Local legend says that a reporter wrote a series of columns about the country’s only leprechaun colony in 1947. The reporter, Dick Fagan, spotted one of the leprechauns digging a hole in the spot outside his window and captured it. He used his wish to get a park of his own, but the leprechaun tricked him and gave him the hole in the ground instead. The two-foot long patch of ground became an official city park in 1976 and serves as the epicenter of the town’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

Read More: 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Leprechauns | http://thefw.com/things-you-didnt-know-about-leprechauns/?trackback=tsmclip

A small patch of carefully landscaped land sits in the middle of a road in Portland, Oregon, but it’s not just roadside greenery to perk up a neighborhood street. It’s actually a park dedicated to leprechauns. Local legend says that a reporter wrote a series of columns about the country’s only leprechaun colony in 1947. The reporter, Dick Fagan, spotted one of the leprechauns digging a hole in the spot outside his window and captured it. He used his wish to get a park of his own, but the leprechaun tricked him and gave him the hole in the ground instead. The two-foot long patch of ground became an official city park in 1976 and serves as the epicenter of the town’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

Read More: 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Leprechauns | http://thefw.com/things-you-didnt-know-about-leprechauns/?trackback=tsmclip