Skokie's Engine House has been part of the village landscape since its construction in 1887, reflecting Niles Centre's growth and rising concern about fire after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In the 1860s, Niles Centre began to grow at the intersection of Niles Center Road and Lincoln Avenue, with about 200 people living there, and after many Chicagoans relocated north, residents organized a bucket brigade to fight fires. As wooden downtown buildings increased the danger, the 1881 burning of the Iserman family home exposed the brigade's limits, leading George C. Klehm and other leaders to form the Niles Centre Volunteer Fire Company at Kleb's General Store. The company bought a Rumsey Hand Pumper, a horse-drawn ladder truck, and a hose reel cart, incorporated in 1884, and raised funds for a building; Ludwig and Gertrude Schmitz donated land, and the Engine House was completed in 1887 with local materials and labor, much of it donated. Its first floor included two equipment bays, an office, and a stairway used for drying fire hose, while the second floor held a meeting hall with a barrel ceiling and musicians gallery; jail cells were added beneath the stairs in 1888, and a bell tower was erected in 1898. The building quickly became a civic center: residents voted there in 1888 to incorporate the Village of Niles Centre, the second floor temporarily served as a school in 1897, and the hall hosted weddings, parties, dances, church gatherings, boxing matches, local organizations, and village board meetings. In 1922, the village bought the Engine House from the Volunteer Fire Company and used it as a firehouse, village hall, and jail until 1927, when a new Village Hall was built on Oakton Street. The second floor was remodeled in 1947 for firemen's sleeping quarters, and the building remained a working firehouse until 1969, after which it housed the Skokie Health Department, then became home to the Skokie Historical Society in 1982. In 1991, ownership passed to the Skokie Park District, which restored the building to its late nineteenth-century appearance; today it operates as the Skokie Heritage Museum, housing the Skokie Historical Society, a permanent fire department exhibit on the first floor, and rotating exhibits on the second.