Baha'i Temple

The Baha'i House of Worship sits on the shores of Lake Michigan, just 5 miles north of Chicago.

How it came to be built in the heart of the United States is a story that begins with the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

Inspired by news of the first Baha'i Temple in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, members of the Chicago Baha'i House of Spirituality drafted a petition in 1903 asking for permission to begin their own.

Fifty years later, in 1953, a completed Baha'i House of Worship was dedicated in Wilmette.

The story of how very few believers in a new faith built the "Great Bell" of the North Shore--during the Great Depression and World War II years--is shown with archival photographs from every stage of construction up to the present.

This includes ongoing restoration projects preserving the beauty of the "Temple of Light."