The Thomas Middle School property appears to be maintaining it nature center roots — whether intentional or not.
During a photo shoot of a beautiful sunset in the block of 1400 Belmont Avenue, a coyote casually jogged by along the sidewalk on Belmont Avenue by the Thomas Middle School playing fields. The coyote wasn’t very large, but appeared well fed and healthy.
The sun and clouds put on a good display at sunset, which was at 8:27 p.m. Saturday, June 8, 2024. The coyote disappeared to the south near Olive Street, and Olive-Mary Stitt Elementary School.
Thomas Middle School once had a respectable nature center, including pheasants and other wild animals. Now the large courtyard, which is one of two outdoor courtyards at Thomas Middle School, is more of a park type courtyard with large trees. In the 1960s and 1970s the large courtyard had tall prairie grass and animals, such as frogs, turtles and pheasants and a lot of other birds. The trees were much smaller then.
Pheasants weren’t an unusual site in Arlington Heights in the 1960s and early 1970s. Before Town & Country Mall was built at the southeast corner of Arlington Heights Road and Palatine Road, and before it was redeveloped into Town & Country Center, the entire property was an open prairie with small woods. The field was loaded with pheasants that would often fly, run and walk along the back property lines of homes to the south, on either side of Thomas Street, east of Arlington Heights Road.
