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.