+
upworthy
Most Shared

The story behind the World's Smallest Park is even more delightful than you'd expect.

Like any good dreamer, Dick Fagan spent time writing, listening, and staring out his office window, a detail which is important to this story.

More than 70 years ago, from his desk on the second floor at The Oregon Journal, Fagan noticed a small, round concrete traffic median on top of which a traffic signal would be installed. Construction eventually wrapped up on the median, but no light or traffic signal ever went in.

Soon, the bare space grew thick with weeds and neglect.


After watching the space go unattended, Fagan went down to the median himself, cleared the weeds and trash, and planted some flowers.

Mill Ends Park from above. Photo by Don Ryan/AP.

He called it Mill Ends Park, after his popular newspaper column of the same name ("mill ends" are the odd, rough pieces of lumber often left over and discarded at mills).

On St. Patrick's Day in 1948, Fagan held a dedication ceremony and declared Mill Ends to be the World's Smallest Park.

Fagan, a proud Irishman, used his column to describe the "goings-on" at the tiny park, sharing whimsical tales of an active leprechaun colony led by head leprechaun, Patrick O'Toole.

He continued writing about the park and its fantastical inhabitants until his death in 1969. Shortly before he died, the city held a rededication ceremony for Mill Ends, complete with city council members, a ribbon cutting, an Irish pipe band, and an Irish dance group.

A local group gifted Fagan a permanent cement enclosure for the park, complete with stadium turf and a handmade leprechaun statue. Fagan was too ill to attend the ceremony and passed away just a few weeks later.

Mill Ends Park lives on to this day and has even earned international recognition.

Since 1976, Mill Ends has been an official Portland city park.

At 452.16 square inches (about the size of a laundry basket) it holds the Guinness Book of Records title for the world’s smallest park.

Mill Ends Park in 2007. Photo by brx0/Flickr.

Though it was moved briefly for roadwork, Mill Ends Park still sits in the median at the intersection of what is now Naito Parkway and Taylor Street.

The city looks after it, replacing the small tree and plants as needed, just as it would any other public park.

Mill Ends Park in 2017. Photo by Erin Canty/Upworthy.

Tourists and locals alike are encouraged to visit.

Just keep an eye out for traffic.

Photo by Erin Canty/Upworthy.

Over the years, the park has seen improvements like a butterfly swimming pool, a tiny ferris wheel delivered via full-size crane, and even dinosaurs.

Last stop of the trip. Someone filled this tiny park with dinosaurs!

A post shared by TC Harrison (@tcorama) on

After all these years, it's still a great spot for the occasional picnic...

...or even a protest.

In 2011, the leprechauns  joined forces with demonstrators and hosted what is likely the smallest Occupy Portland event on record.

Mill Ends Park during Occupy Portland. Photos by Another Believer/Wikimedia Commons.

What began as Fagan's simple effort to beautify a forgotten space has now become a world-class (albeit odd) landmark.

Yes, it's one of the many things that "keeps Portland weird," but it's also a living tribute to ingenuity and creativity. Never doubt what one dreamer can do with a little potting soil and a lot of imagination.

Allison Wildman crouches low to get a photo. Photo by Don Ryan/AP.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less
Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less