Cemeteries and Baha'is

A View of the Baha'i Temple

A View Calvary Cemetery

Sheridan At University Place Chicago Avenue

Sheridan is known as state route 42. As we leave Rogers Park we arrive into Evanston where the road curves to the right on the side of the lake and scoots around Calvary Cemetery. Calvary Cemetery was established in 1859 so it is certainly a very old place. Calvary Beach was knocked out of the way in 1930 to make way for the passage of Sheridan. Because of bottleneck traffic down Sheridan Road, leaders at the time proposed making a tunnel from Juneway (a Chicago street) street to Oakton (an Evanston street) but those proposals were shot down. Many former mayors are buried there including William E. Dever, John P. Hopkins, Edward J. Kelly and Martin H. Kennelly.

Traffic was such a huge problem though especially in the 1920s when most people on the North Shore had cars. The article describes the congestion as this, "One gets an impression from old accounts that Sheridan Road is less congested today than it was in 1925. Accurate traffic counts weren't made then. But one estimate-map published by the Chicago Regional Planning Association shows an average 1925 weekday flow of roughly 20,000 vehicles on Sheridan Road at Calvary Cemetary in South Evanston and just within the Chicago city limits in Rogers Park." Once the Edens and Kennedy Expressways as well as the Tri-State tollway were built Sheridan was much less crowded.

We leave Evanston behind on a final note of one gorgeous, gorgeous temple that I have been forever in love with since I was in my early teens and my parents would road trip there way down Sheridan Road all the way to Kenosha. This temple is called the Baha'i Temple. The article describes this group of peaceful people as "....Teach[ing] the universality of man and God. The word Baha'i is derived from a Persian title. "Baha'i Ullah," meaning glory of God." This beautiful temple that is simply put a work of architectural art took forty years to complete from 1912 until 1952. One can definitely say it was worth it.