Ted’s Tool Shed at Southeast 88th Street and Southeast Powell Boulevard is hanging up the tool belt for tomorrow. Filled with new and used shovels, rakes, ladders, wheelbarrows and the like, the shed has been a word-of-mouth favorite for decades.

Josh Hill, an award-winning motocross athlete and grandson of founder Ted Hill, He announced the news on Instagram on November 3:

“Teds Tool Shed is closing. “This little shop that my grandfather owned long before I was born was the best sponsor I ever had.”

Until he was 4, Hill lived with his family in the upstairs apartment, which had vertical ramps behind him to practice on.

A store employee confirmed the closing, saying Ted’s will sell all remaining inventory today and tomorrow and close the doors permanently on Wednesday, November 6. (Hill’s Instagram post below states the store will be open through the weekend, but the employee says a truck will be auctioning off the remaining inventory midweek.) Items are up to 75% off.

Ted’s Tool Shed made Willamette Week’s Best of Portland issue in 2016. “The Best Place to Buy a Hammer for a Dollar.”

“The inventory stretches across the parking lot, where hundreds of tool handles are spread out like porcupine quills on shelves,” Matthew Korfhage wrote. At that time, the name Ted Hill was still working there at age 80. (According to the employee, he passed away around 2022.) He ran a vintage shop here since the 1960s and switched to tools in the 80s. At the time, the lodge moved 2,000 to 4,000 used garden tools each spring.