Niles History: An Audio Tour of the First Movie Capital

Niles isn’t just a charming town hidden in the Bay Area hills – it was Hollywood before Hollywood existed.

On this self-guided walking tour, you’ll discover how this rowdy railroad junction became the world’s first movie capital, where Charlie Chaplin perfected his Little Tramp and cowboy stars invented the Western genre.

The tour starts and ends at the Niles Depot Museum. You’ll walk along Niles Boulevard past the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, housed in the original 1913 Edison Theater. Along quiet residential streets, you’ll see preserved Essanay Cottages where actors bunked together, and Victorian homes where railroad elite rented rooms to movie stars.

You’ll hear about how Niles transformed from a frontier town with 18 saloons into a thriving film studio. I’ll also share stories about bank robberies that were stopped by costumed cowboys, ghost sightings in the Hotel Wesley, and how Joe’s Corner operated as the town’s unofficial bank during Prohibition.