Page 140 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SPRING 2021 REDISCOVERING CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL COAST

David Kiehn, who published a book on Niles’
silent film industry, helps run the museum with
his wife, Rena, and a dedicated cadre of volun-
teers. “We were afraid the history wouldn’t sur-
vive, and the stories and artifacts would be lost,”
explains Kiehn, who began shooting 8 mm
movies as a kid.
Several years ago, Kiehn also made an impor-
tant discovery about the turn-of-the-century
film A Trip Down Market Street, featuring
footage shot on a San Francisco cable car. Sort-
ing through clues, including historic weather re-
ports, he realized that the film was made in
1906, just days before the devastating earth-
quake, and not in 1905, as previously believed.
Morley Safer interviewed Kiehn about his find-
ings in a segment for 60 Minutes, but typically,
the soft-spoken film historian is more comfort-
able behind a projector, screening old movies at
the museum.
Train Spotting
With the invention of the “talkie,” Niles’ film
fame came to an end. Train tracks run just north
of the boulevard, and the shrill whistles of ap-
proaching locomotives weren’t conducive to
movie dialogue.
Today, the restored station house on the main
street features a small museum and model rail-
way. A pleasure train also runs between Niles
and Sunol, where we popped into Bosco’s Bones
and Brew, named for the black Labrador/Rot-
tweiler mix who served as Sunol’s honorary
mayor from 1981 until his death in 1994.
When customers belly up to the bar at this
roadside haunt, they inevitably ask, “What’s on
Bosco?” You see, there’s a special tap built into a
lifelike replica of Bosco. Lift his leg, and the dog
produces a steady stream of…beer.

Film historian David Kiehn traveled as far as
England to track down prints of silent films
that were shot in Niles in the early 20th
century. He and a host of volunteers run the
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. Copy-
right Amy Laughinghouse

140 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE 2021