I am a concerned citizen and resident of Thomaston. Over the past several years much time and energy has been expended on questions related to the former Maine State Prison site located just off Route1 or Main Street in Thomaston. 

In June, 2023, Thomaston voters—by the razor-thin margin of four votes in a dangerously over-capacity annual Town meeting that allowed only “in-person” voting and limited public discussion—approved purchase by the Knox Health Clinic of a parcel of this land from the Town of Thomaston to be developed as a new facility for the Knox Health Clinic. 

As we rapidly approach another new year, the facility remains unbuilt and Town leaders on the Select Board and staff appear to be in the dark as to future plans by Knox Health Clinic board and staff.

The Town, guided by Rasor Landscape Architects, has recently developed a Master Plan and concept for the former prison site that addresses both current and future possibilities for a vibrant community resource that serves everyone. 

Central to the plan’s forward-looking promise is a flexible multi-faceted approach allowing change and adjustments as priorities, timing and budgets might allow.  The landscape architect’s proposal, with an admirable light touch, is for an overall program of open green space and judicious  landscaping with sweeping viewsheds with unobstructed access to vistas as well as diverse “rooms” in which to experience varying types and experiences of nature from forest to meadow to pollinator gardens.   

I am among the nearly 50% of voters who opposed the Knox Health Clinic’s plans to build on what was then known as the Thomaston Green.  It was an unfortunate and unnecessary choice between open space and a health center that pit many proponents of both needs against each other; the damage has been lasting but is also reversible to the extent the health center would be willing to return the land to Thomaston residents, perhaps with a covenant that the land remain open and incorporated into the new Riverview Park.   

Should the Knox Health Center ever need a branch facility in Thomaston (knowing that the new Rockland building is their permanent new home) I and many of my neighbors believe the best interests of the Health Clinic would be best served on or behind the historic Main Street Business Block with immediate access to municipal offices and services, schools, free parking, outdoor recreational space, senior housing and apartments, restaurants, grocery, banking and other businesses. 

The open-ended program for Rasor’s proposed landscape design will, we hope, over time and with appropriate “cultivation,” persuade most citizens that the innate beauty and public benefit of the parcel, currently owned by the Health Clinic, is well worth preserving as open space for future generations.  

To re-imagine the former prison site as a place for regenerative nature—as visual, recreational, and ecological teaching resource and moment for schools, families, and individuals of all ages—with breathtaking meadows, walkways, and vistas—is an opportunity to rebuild trust with the Knox Clinic as well as Town officials. 

There is poetic irony in that the proposed new Riverview Park sits on the actual model for Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption.  

Releasing and freeing the Health Clinic’s parcel, enhancing a new Riverview Park in Thomaston, would present a redemptive, healing gift to the entire community. 

Chris Crosman lives in Thomaston