Essanay Film Manufacturing Company's western branch studio stood on this site from 1913 to 1933 as the first purpose-built movie studio in Northern California. Essanay, a company of 52 people led by movie star cowboy Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson, arrived in Niles in April 1912, drawn by favorable weather and the scenery of Niles Canyon. Before the studio building was ready for occupancy the next year, the company had already made over 100 films from headquarters in a barn on Second Street. During the next three years, Essanay produced 250 films here, including Broncho Billy westerns, Snakeville Comedies, contemporary dramas, and five films by Charlie Chaplin, including The Tramp (1915). The studio closed in 1916 because of a change in ownership and consolidation of production facilities at the main studio in Chicago, but the Niles studio remained the most successful movie company in the San Francisco Bay Area during the silent era.