Wilmette

Wilmette, village, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. Lying on Lake Michigan, it is a primarily residential suburb of Chicago, about 15 miles (24 km) north of downtown. Illinois and later Potawatomi Indians were early inhabitants of the area, which was visited by the French explorer Jacques Marquette in 1674. French Canadian fur trader Antoine Ouilmette and his wife, Archange, partly of Native American descent, built a cabin on the lakeshore in 1825. Four years later a land grant was awarded to Archange, and the community was named for the family. The arrival of the railroad in the 1860s stimulated growth, and the village was laid out in 1869. In the mid-19th century the area became a centre of German immigration, particularly from Trier. The immigrants established a community known as Gross Point, which was annexed by Wilmette in 1926. Wilmette is the site of the Bahāʾī House of Worship (completed 1953), a nine-sided mosquelike temple that is the centre of the Bahāʾī faith in North America. Wallace Bowl, built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, is an outdoor amphitheatre that hosts theatrical and musical productions. Inc. 1872. Pop. (2000) 27,651; (2010) 27,087.