Original Boundaries of Niles Center
The Original Boundaries of the Village of Niles Center
The original extent of Niles Center is depicted in Map "A". Essentially it consisted of a square, three quarters of a mile on each side, with a rectangle about 5/8 of a mile long and 1/4 of a mile wide on the north side of this square, but positioned to the west. The Village Ordinance incorporating the village and establishing these boundaries was the second ordinance the Village Board passed, in May of 1888. Modern day streets corresponding roughly to the boundaries of the 5/4 mile square are Mulford on the south, Main Street on the North, Skokie Boulevard. on the east, and Long Avenue on the west. In all cases, the center line of such streets are the boundaries referred to. The little rectangle 16 the northwest of the square is bounded on the east by modern day Laramie, on the north by Greenleaf, on the west by Linder, and on the south by Main. Only Long and the western segment of Main are still part of the Village boundary today. The frame house standing on the east side of Niles Center Road. at the intersection with Mulford affords an interesting physical marker of the original village boundary. If one stands in the middle of Mulford, either east or west of Niles Center Road, and looks past the north edge of this house, it will be seen that the north edge of the house comes almost exactly to the center of Mulford. The house was built circa 1895 just outside the village boundary.
The reason for the inclusion of the northwest rectangle would appear to be that the Protestant cemeteries of St. Peter's United and St. Paul's Lutheran churches were located in this area. There has been a subsequent extension of St. Paul's cemetery to the north of the Greenleaf line and of St. Peter's to the west of the Linder line. The central business district of the original Niles Center was, of course, the intersection of Lincoln and Niles Center Road, and remains so today, except that the major shopping area has shifted to Old Orchard, in the northern part of the village.