In 1888, the Village of Skokie was incorporated under its original name, Niles Centre, and around 1910 the British spelling Centre was replaced with the American Center. In 1925, local property owner Al Lies replaced the greenhouses on his family farm at 8146 Floral Ave. with a modern entertainment venue called Niles Center Recreation Rooms, and next door the Niles Center Home Laundry was also built with the original village name carved into its facade. By the late 1930s, community leaders and local real estate agents sought a more urbane name to distinguish the village from nearby Niles and from Niles Township. In 1940, residents submitted more than 1,100 proposed names in a renaming contest, and after the committee narrowed the choices to four, Skokie won the final vote 15 to 4 to 2 to 1 over Oaklyn, Ridgemoor, and Westridge. The change from Niles Center to Skokie, a Potawatomi Native American word for "marsh," became effective at 12:01 am on November 15, 1940. Although residents had chosen to distance the village from its rural origins, the old name remained visible for decades on the Niles Center Home Laundry and the Niles Center Recreation Rooms building. The Recreation Rooms building was razed in 2008, and when the Home Laundry was finally torn down in 2011, the portion of its brick wall bearing the chiseled Niles Center name was preserved, along with green terra cotta tiles from the Recreation Rooms building.