Bahá'í House of Worship (Wilmette, Illinois)
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Bahá'í Temple
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| Location | 100 Linden Ave., Wilmette, Illinois |
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| Coordinates | 42°4′27″N 87°41′3″W / 42.07417°N 87.68417°WCoordinates: 42°4′27″N 87°41′3″W / 42.07417°N 87.68417°W |
| Area | 6.97 acres (2.82 ha) |
| Built | 1912-1953 |
| Architect | Bourgeois, Louis Jean; Fuller, George A. |
| NRHP Reference # | 78001140 |
| Added to NRHP | May 23, 1978 |
The Bahá'í House of Worship (or Bahá'í Temple) in Wilmette, Illinois. One of eight dedicated temples of the Bahá'í Faith, it is the oldest surviving Bahá'í House of Worship in the world, and the only one in the United States.
In 1903, a small group of Bahá'ís in downtown Chicago first discussed the idea of a Bahá'í House of Worship in the Chicago area. At the time, the world's first House of Worship was being built in Ashgabat, in what is now Turkmenistan. A Bahá'í from Chicago named Corinne Knight True went on pilgrimage to British Mandated Palestine in 1907 to visit `Abdu'l-Bahá, then leader of the religion, and tell him of the growing interest in a local house of worship. `Abdu'l-Bahá gave his blessing to the project, but recommended that the structure be built away from the Chicago business district, in a more quiet area near Lake Michigan. The Bahá'ís considered building the temple in Chicago's Jackson Park or the suburb of Evanston, but eventually settled on Wilmette, Illinois, just north of Evanston. True began coordinating work and acted as the treasurer of the growing effort and it became a solace to her life in the face of many personal challenges. Subsequently American Bahá’ís came to refer to her as "the mother of the Temple" and she was eventually appointed one of the Hands of the Cause of the religion. The Bahá'í administrative body True initiated by direction of `Abdu'l-Bahá, the Bahá'í Temple Unity, began purchasing land and gradually assumed larger responsibilities across communities until it was renamed the National Spiritual Assembly.
Bahá'ís from around the world gradually raised funds to pay for the project. For example, French Baha'is were noted as contributing even after facing the January 1910 Great Flood of Paris. A Chicago resident named Nettie Tobin, unable to contribute any money, famously donated a discarded piece of limestone from a construction site. This stone became the symbolic cornerstone of the building when `Abdu'l-Bahá arrived in Wilmette in 1912 for the ground-breaking ceremony during his journeys to the West. The actual construction of the building did not begin until the 1920s, after Bahá'ís agreed to use a design by Louis Bourgeois. The design was seen as a mixture of many different architectural styles.
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