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Ted’s Tool Shed at Southeast 88th Avenue and Powell Boulevard is hanging up its tool belt for good tomorrow. The shack has been a word-of-mouth favorite for decades, stuffed with new and used shovels, rakes, ladders, wheelbarrows and the like.
Founder Ted Hill’s grandson Josh Hill, a decorated motocross athlete, announced the news Nov. 3 on Instagram:
“Teds Tool Shed is shutting down. This little shop my grandpa owned from well before I was born, was the best sponsor I ever had.”
Hill lived in the upstairs apartment with his parents until he was 4, and there were vert ramps in the back for him to practice on.
A store employee confirmed the closure, saying Ted’s is selling off all the remaining inventory today and tomorrow and will close the doors permanently Wednesday, Nov. 6. (Hill’s Instagram post, below, says the store will be open through the weekend, but the employee says a truck is taking remaining inventory to auction midweek.) Merchandise is up to 75% off.
Ted’s Tool Shed made Willamette Week’s Best of Portland issue in 2016 as the “Best Place to Buy a Hammer for a Buck.”
“The inventory spills out into the parking lot, where racks contain hundreds of tool handles splayed out like porcupine quills,” Matthew Korfhage wrote. At the time, the titular Ted Hill was still working there at 80 years old. (He passed away in about 2022, according to the employee.) He ran a vintage shop there starting in the 1960s, switching to tools in the ’80s. At the time, the shack was moving 2,000 to 4,000 used garden tools each spring.