Plan for patriotic Maine theme park withdrawn

The family behind the proposed Flagpole of Freedom Park, a sprawling patriotic theme park in Columbia Falls, Maine, that would have featured the world’s tallest flagpole, has withdrawn the plan after hearing from local residents at a round of public meetings, their lawyer said Monday.

“Over the course of those months of listening, they decided they should focus on a different type of project,” Timothy A. Pease, a lawyer for the Worcester family, the park proponent best known for its nonprofit Wreaths Across America, said Monday.

Pease said the family hasn’t yet decided on an alternative project.

“They’ve always been wanting to be very good neighbors to that local region,” said Pease, a partner at the Bangor firm of Rudman Winchell. “So in the course of discussions I think they believed there could be a different way to make a positive impact on the community.”

The Maine Monitor previously reported on the family’s decision to abandon plans for the park and a 1,461-foot flagpole (exactly 1,776 feet above sea level) with an American flag the size of one-and-a-half football fields.

The Globe and the Monitor collaborated on a report that ran last March on the Worcester family’s expansive vision for the park, which called for theaters, restaurants, a hotel, stores, hiking trails, museum exhibits, and ticketed rides and educational attractions.

“This will be a place that’s known as the most patriotic place there is,” Rob Worcester, the project’s cofounder and managing director, said in a promotional video in 2022.

Critics dismissed the plan as fanciful and over the top. But in Washington County, the state’s poorest, some said it deserved serious consideration.

The family said the park could have created 5,000 jobs, ranking it among the state’s largest employers. They estimated it could have drawn 6 million visitors a year and improve local infrastructure in need of repairs.

Still, the concept proved a lot to swallow for Columbia Falls, whose business community consists of farms, a diner, a general store, a lobster trap manufacturer; and Wild Blueberry Land, a blueberry-shaped shop and museum.

“It’s just too big for the area,” Dell Emerson, who has run Wild Blueberry Land, a roadside attraction, with his wife, Marie, for two decades, said in an interview last year.