Unity Temple

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

From the record

“Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church building that houses the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation at 875 Lake Street in Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The structure, designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie style, is cited as an early example of modern architecture.”
Wikipedia article Unity Temple, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 621 National Register listings published here for Cook County · listed in 1970 · category: Building · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Address. 875 Lake St., Oak Park, 60301
When was it listed? April 1970
Category. building
Township. Oak Park township
Architectural style. modern architecture
Architect. Frank Lloyd Wright
National Register reference number. 70000240 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Unity Temple: 4 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
A C O'Laughlin Stone Co Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Bellwood Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Melrose Park City Eng. - Own Crews	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
River Forest City Eng - Own Crews	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Cook County

Storms near this property

9 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Oak Park, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 2007 and 2024: 9 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	$3,000	As many as 50 large tree limbs were blown down along with power lines in Oak Park. A couple entire trees were also blown down.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	$1,000	Several tree limbs and power lines were blown down.
August 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	A picture was received of a roughly 6-inch diameter tree limb that had snapped.
April 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	Numerous trees were uprooted and windows were blown out near Lake Street and Oak Park Avenue. Shingles were blown off a church roof along Lake Street.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	Photo shared via social media showed a large tree limb which had been blown down in Oak Park. Time was estimated using radar.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	Tree damage was reported.
August 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	Half of a tree was snapped at its fork.
August 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	Numerous tree limbs were blown down in Oak Park. More than a dozen streets were blocked by the fallen tree limbs.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Oak Park	-	Several large trees blown down in Oak Park.

Every storm recorded in Cook County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Masonic Temple Building	0.1 miles	1982
Scoville Place	0.1 miles	2002
Frank Thomas House	0.2 miles	1972
Mrs. Thomas H. Gale House	0.3 miles	1970
Ridgeland-Oak Park Historic District	0.4 miles	1983
Arthur Heurtley House	0.4 miles	2000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 70000240 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Cook County	All 621 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.