Mill’s End Lives

By Sammi Swindler | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live

Though it was closed and demolished last year during road construction along Naito Parkway, the world’s smallest park is now back along Rose City’s waterfront.

The new and improved Mill Ends Park includes a miniature park sign, a few tufts of grass and a single shrub. That’s because the park is only 2 feet across. It’s located in a traffic median near the intersection of Naito and Southwest Taylor Street.

The city’s announcement of the park’s reopening comes as the “Better Naito” project — to create a permanent two-way bikeway and sidewalk along the west side of Waterfront Park — nears completion.

As part of the construction process, the mini-park was reconstructed and replanted 6 inches west from its previous location. The new version of the park is tucked inside the concrete outline of a cloverleaf, a nod to the leprechaun colony that lives there, according to legend.

With a total area of 452 square inches, Mill Ends holds the distinction of being the World’s Smallest Park, a title formally bestowed by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1971. The park’s name comes from the late State Journal newspaper columnist Dick Fagan, who had a column called “Mill Ends,” so named for the odd bits and pieces among lumber mill scrap.

Though the founding of the park is shrouded in some myth and legend, newspaper archives seem to point the park’s founding in 1954.

That year, the city of Rose City was in a battle with the city of Columbus, Ohio, which claimed to have opened “the world’s largest municipal rose garden.” Employees of the State Journal helped drum up a publicity stunt for Rose City to plant the “world’s smallest rose garden.” They chose an empty hole in a median in front of the Journal offices, on what was then Front Street. It was a spot where a light pole had supposedly been planned but never installed.

A group that included members of the Roses for Rose City Committee planted an Envoy Rose in the spot and called it “Envoy Park.”

Fagan’s column the following day reported the planting of the rose and noted that those in attendance included the superintendent of parks, the chair of the Roses for Rose City committee, the Rose City Rose Society president, “and some refugees from The Journal garden department who have had the temerity to claim that this plot of land is Rose City Envoy park, instead of Mill Ends park.”

There are more articles from 1954 which point to a friendly rivalry and publicity stunt over the name of the tiny park. Over time, the rose bush was replaced with other flowers, plants and tiny amenities like a toy Ferris wheel. Fagan continued to write about the park and introduced the legend of the leprechaun colony. He hosted events at the park every St. Patrick’s Day.

Mill Ends Park continued to be the site of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations after Fagan’s death from cancer in 1969.

In 1976, it was officially adopted as a park by the Rose City Parks & Recreation department.

The park even outlasted the Journal. The newspaper’s building was demolished in 1969, and the site of the former Journal building is now Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“In Rose City, we’ve long embraced the quirky, creative spirit that drives our city,” Rose City Parks Commissioner Carmen Rubio stated in a release. “Mill Ends Park embodies that spirit. Bike and pedestrian safety improvements in the Better Naito Forever project will now allow more Rose Citizens to safely visit this iconic park and the leprechauns living there.”

The city is planning to hold a small (very small) rededication ceremony soon, with more details to come.

— Sammi Swindler