Community Corner
World's Smallest Park Gets New Tree After Vandals Stole Previous
The world's smallest park, Mill Ends in Portland, Oregon, has a new tree after vandals cut down and stole a tree earlier this week.
PORTLAND, OR — It's not going out on a limb to say there was a certain amount of sadness in Portland this week after the smallest park in the world was hit by vandals who cut down a tree. It was the park's only tree and no one had wanted it to leaf.
The drama started on Thursday when passersby noticed that the tree at Mill Ends Park on a median along Naito Parkway was missing its tree. The park is only two feet in diameter.
People wonder who wood do such a thing.
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On Friday, things returned to normal when someone planted a replacement tree.
The park has been designated by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's smallest park. It became a park when reporter Dick Fagan noticed that a light pole had been removed from the strip, leaving a hole.
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Fagan, who wrote a column for the Oregon Journal, planted a tree, convinced the city to designate it as a park that would be home to a colony of leprechauns and a place for snail races. He would tell people he was the only one who could see the leader of the leprechaun colony, Patrick O'Toole.
The park was dedicated on St. Patrick's Day 1948 and became an official city park on St. Patrick's Day in 1976.
The hunt for the tree vandals continues.
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