Tongue-in-cheek feud erupts over world’s smallest parks

My park is smaller than your park. So there.

Those words, complete with a figurative tongue sticking out, are the essence of an international feud between residents of Portland, Oregon and Lichfield, England that has locals, media — even government — staking sides.

The places have one thing in common: a tiny, beloved park. Each has vowed to defend its green space as the rightful holder of the Guinness record for the world's smallest park, come war or online insults, the Associated Press reports in its account of the how the playful dispute unfolded.

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Mill Ends Park in Portland, which consists of a 2-foot-wide planter with flowers and a tree, holds the current world record, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia. The 'park' was built to hold a traffic light, but it earned its greenery when a local newspaper columnist, Dick Fagan, planted flowers in the concrete hole and concocted a tale about a leprechaun colony living inside of it.

Its competition is Prince's Park in Burntwood, Lichfield District, which holds the record for the smallest UK park, according to the district council's website.

However, when Kevin Wilson, an event organizer in Britain, began to promote a fundraiser around Lichfield's tiny park in early April, calling it the world's shortest fun run, he claimed Princes deserved the world record.

The grounds? Mill Ends isn't a park at all.

"It's a glorified flower pot!" says a post on the event's Facebook page.

Harsh words.

Wilson later told a Portland radio show that a park, by definition, should have a fence, according to the Associated Press.

Ask and you shall receive. Proud locals erected a tiny fence, according to KATU News, to go along with the park's tiny plastic pig and the itty bitty toy soldier standing for protection against any overseas intruders.

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But the soldier didn't stop the rhetorical attack against Mill Ends. No, even Lichfield district council is involved. Councillor Steve Norman told Lichfield Live that Prince's Park is a clear winner because under the right circumstances, visitors could find enough space to sit on the grass or maybe even lean on the fence.

Mill Ends has had a rough couple of months. In March, someone stole the park's lone tree, though a resident found it a week later, according to NWCN.com.

The leprechaun colony is gathering its strength. This is war.