![]() Does the quiet area want the visitors it would bring? Would the massive undertaking scar the landscape? How do you balance development and environmentalism? How do traditional industries fare? In Columbia Falls, population 485, the debate has laid bare community and cultural flashpoints. So far, the proposed Flagpole of Freedom Park has done precisely the opposite. “We want to bring Americans together, remind them of the centuries of sacrifice made to protect our freedom, and unite a divided America," said Morrill Worcester, whose family is behind the proposal. To proponents, the $1 billion project would unite people of all political stripes in an era of national polarization. The flagpole would be 1,461 feet tall - the tallest in the world - and the proposal also envisions a village with living history museums, a 4,000-seat auditorium, restaurants and a monument with the name of every veteran who has died since the Revolution - about 24 million names in all. This is the backdrop to a family’s bold vision: a flagpole jutting upward from the woodlands toward spacious skies - reaching higher than the Empire State Building and topped with an American flag bigger than a football field. The vast wilderness and ocean meet in one of the last places on the East Coast unspoiled by development. Lobster boat engines rumble to life, lumberjacks trudge into the woods and farmers tend wild blueberries just like they have for generations here at the nation's northeastern tip on the edge of Maine. A family hopes to build a $1 billion theme park nearby. ![]() ![]() flag flies at Patriot Park where a collection of monuments stand in tribute to veterans in Columbia Falls, Maine. ![]()
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