Mill Ends Park, Urban park in downtown Portland, United States

Mill Ends Park is a circular flowerbed with a diameter of roughly 2 feet (60 centimeters), set into the median strip of SW Naito Parkway near the Willamette River. A metal sign from the municipal parks department marks the spot where a single tree and seasonal plantings grow.

Journalist Dick Fagan planted flowers in 1948 in an empty hole originally intended for a light pole and named the spot after his newspaper column. The city officially recognized the plot as a park, and in 1971 Guinness recorded it as the smallest green space in the world.

The name comes from "Mill Ends", Dick Fagan's column in The Oregon Journal, a reference to leftover irregular pieces of wood at lumber mills. Fagan dedicated the plot in 1976 as "the only leprechaun colony west of Ireland", led by a leprechaun he called Patrick O'Toole. According to his column, the leprechauns appear only at midnight on a full moon on St. Patrick's Day, and only to children bringing four-leaf clovers; the next such moon falls on March 17, 2041. St. Patrick's Day events here have included concerts by the Clan Macleay Pipe Band and rose plantings by the Junior Rose Festival Court.

The garden sits at the intersection of SW Naito Parkway and Taylor Street near the waterfront, and you can spot it by the municipal park sign beside the sidewalk. Pedestrians should take care because the location is directly in traffic and offers no separate stopping area.

Municipal gardeners maintain this plot with the same tools they use for all other parks, even though the entire bed is smaller than an average desk. Some passersby leave small coins or miniature figures as offerings for the supposed resident.