Cook County, 13 miles NW of Loop. In the early 1830s, German
farmers flocked to the area around present-day Waukegan Road and
Milwaukee Avenue, which came to be known as Dutchman's Point.
John Schadiger and Julius Perren were the first, build- ing an
unusual house that had no windows and a single door. In 1837
John Marshall and Benjamin Hall erected the North Branch Hotel,
and the following year residents established the area's first
schoolhouse. By 1850 the North West Plank Road, later Milwaukee
Avenue, allowed farmers to travel more easily to the markets of
downtown Chicago. The township of Niles formed in 1850; by 1884
the town, centered at Milwaukee, Waukegan, and Touhy Avenues,
consisted of two stores, two hotels, one drugstore, three
churches, three cemeteries, two schools, and one doctor's
office. In 1899, at the time of the village's incorporation,
population was 500. The name of Niles was probably taken from
the nationally distributed Niles Register newspaper. After the
turn of the century the Chicag