THOMSON, Ill. — The Village of Thomson has seen its population explode in just a short time, as the Federal Bureau of Prisons ramped up the transfer of inmates to USP Thomson, the new federal prison in town, in recent months.
Those 1089 convicts will be counted as part of the Thomson population in the 2020 census.
"USP Thomson has been activated for over a year now," said Thomson Village President Vicky Trager. "It currently averages 1000 inmates; it's not at capacity."
She said the coronavirus outbreak has slowed the growth, but "Once the quarantine is over they’ll probably be receiving more inmates, later this year."
"It’s gonna triple our population if it stays at this level when they do the count."
Thomson's population was 590 in the last census in 2010, including 30 inmates of what was then the Thomson Correction Center, a state facility.
Village leaders and business owners have waited for years for the prison to fill up and bring staff, visitors, and business to the area.
Lawrene Bruckner, a business owner and member of the Thomson Chamber of Commerce, is one of those business owners who banked on the influx.
He owns 14 rental units. "I built three of these duplexes back in the 90s, hoping there would be a boom."
He is still hopeful, he said, that a higher census count would bring in additional funds to the community and in turn spur more development.
Trager said the city could see an extra $140,000 dollars in state shared revenues, adding that "Motor Fuel Tax, the new gasoline surcharge, and cannabis tax are also based on the census figures, so as you can see, the 2020 census is very important for the Village of Thomson."
The Thomson prison's visitors and a growing workforce are keeping city employees busy.
"With more traffic, and more people traveling through town, they’ve been very busy lately. It would be nice to have one more full time person on our police department and one more full time person in our public works department," Trager said.
Thomson leaders don't expect the extra cash to come in until late 2021, but they are already planning ahead.
"Just to beautify the town, make it more pleasant. Hopefully it’ll bring more developers to our town that are interested in opening more businesses. Currently we have one restaurant. As much as we love it, we would like to see more businesses and restaurants, housing here in Thomson."
To that end, Trager is still calling on people to make sure they get counted.
"I’m just hoping with the sheltering in place order, that people take this opportunity to complete their census, because what else do you have to do right now, right?"