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Interesting Links The wonderful Niles Canyon Railways that have preserved a huge number of steam (and other) engines and carriages that make the spectacular run from Sunol down to Niles. Take a trip down memory lane and take the vintage bus from the Niles Train stop to the Cafe for lunch.
http://www.ncry.org/
An interesting site for a local charity that is trying to have the Niles hillside sign recognized as a California State Historic Site and, eventually, to have it illuminated as a beacon for the community and a reminder of the link between Niles and the film industry.
http://www.thenilessign.org
A new company that has been very active in promoting the concept of a restaurant with a historic bent in the area. Niles Motion Pictures is bringing the latest video production facilities and capabilities to an area steeped in movie making history
http://www.nilesmotionpictures.com
A wonderful and globally recognized resource in Niles is the Essanay Silent Film Museum.
http://www.nilesfilmmuseum.org
Check out our faults... Niles Fault Lines
Sign the petition to add Edna Purviance to the Hollywood Walk of Fame
http://www.petitiononline.com
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Introduction to the Historic Town of Niles
In 1853 the County of Alameda created the Washington Township (the 148 square miles now known as the Cities of Fremont, Newark, and Union City). In this stable agricultural community of orchards and vegetable fields, the loose reins of the county sufficed for government structure and control for almost 100 years. Eight small commercial centers, "towns," developed within the township to provide food, supplies, and gas to the rural community. They included: Niles, Irvington, Hardscrapple (now known as Centerville), Mission San Jose, Warm Springs, Alvarado, Decoto, and Newark. Other reports describe the 6 towns of Washington Township as Alvarado, Mission San Jose, Centerville, Washington Corners, Vallejo Mills, and Harrisburg.
 The town of Niles made history in 1869 when the last tracks connecting the first transcontinental railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific were laid. It was the home of Essanay Film Manufacturing Company which moved from Chicago in 1912 to Niles where reliable weather facilitated outdoor filming. The initials of the names of the two founders, G.M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson and George K. Spoor, gave the studio the name S and A or “Essanay”.
They produced hundreds of early motion pictures, featuring such stars as Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and cinema's first cowboy hero, "Broncho Billy". Hundreds of his westerns, and scores of silent movies starring Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin, and Wallace Beery, were filmed in the streets of Niles right outside the Essanay Café which was originally built at the time the studio came to town. February 16th, 1916 saw the end of film-making in Niles. The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in Niles had made its last film and the big money had moved south to found what is now Hollywood. In Niles the memories of Charlie Chaplin, Broncho Billy and other legends of silent movies linger on in the township and surrounding canyons and lend an air of nostalgic magic to the historic community left behind.
The team at the Essanay Cafe has long recognized the potential for Niles to become one of the dining and leisure time centers of the East Bay and that that potential is significant and is not too far in the future. Nowhere else in the area can boast the level and richness of the history that is available to underpin this growth. The Essanay Cafe builds on this richness and reflects the magic of a bye-gone era.
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