NILES, a city of Berrien county, Michigan, U.S.A., 93 in. E. of Chicago, on the St. Joseph river. It is on Federal highway 31; has a municipal airport ; and is served by the Big Four and the Michigan Central railways, and by interurban trolley and motor bus lines. The population was 7,311 in 192o, 9o% native white, by 193o census 11,326, a increase. It is the shipping and trading point of a rich farming and dairying region; has a mush room industry which supplies most of the markets of the Middle West ; and is an important manufacturing centre, with numerous and diversified industries. The Michigan Central railroad has its largest classification yards here, as well as repair shops and round houses. On or near the site of Niles French Jesuits established a mission in 169o, and the French government in 1697 erected Ft. St. Joseph, which was captured from the English by the Indians in 1763 and in 1781 was seized by a Spanish party from Saint Louis.
The present city was founded in 1826 and incorporated in 1859. NILES, a city of Trumbull county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Ma honing river, io m. above Youngstown; served by the Baltimore and Ohio, the Erie and the Pennsylvania railways. Pop. 13,08o in 192o (25% foreign-born white) ; and by the census of 193o, 16,314. It is an important industrial centre, manufacturing espe cially steel sheets, glass and fire-brick, with a factory output in 1927 valued at $20,947,394. Niles was settled in 1832, incorpor ated as a village in 1865 and chartered as a city in 1895. It was named (1834) after Hezekiah Niles (1777-1839), founder and editor of Niles's Register ; and was the birthplace of President McKinley, to whose memory a memorial has been erected.