Dresser, California

The Niles Canyon ghost is an urban legend within the vanishing hitchhiker archetype, about the ghost of a girl who had died in a car accident. The accident is said to have taken place on February 28, with the year varying, and the ghost is said to walk the road on that day every year, looking to hitch a ride to San Francisco.One variation of the story has the hiker's backstory being that she died in a car crash on Niles Canyon road (off the 680 freeway in Sunol, California) on the way back from a dance. Some say that she can be seen at midnight waiting at the corner she died at. People traveling along the road (mostly those traveling alone) have said to have stopped and offered the girl a ride. She accepts the ride, giving the driver an address across the bridge (either Dumbarton or Bay Bridge depending on the storyteller). Once the driver gets to the beginning of the bridge, the girl will disappear. In stories told of the ghost, a driver who visits the girl's address is told by the girl's mother that she died many years previously. Another version of the story has the ghost described as a White Lady killed in a carriage accident a hundred years previously.

Niles Canyon is a canyon in the San Francisco Bay Area formed by Alameda Creek, known for its heritage railroad and silent movie history. The canyon is largely in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, while the western portion of the canyon lies within the city limits of Fremont and Union City. The stretch of State Route 84 known as Niles Canyon Road traverses the length of the canyon from the Niles district of Fremont to the unincorporated town of Sunol. Two railroads also follow the same route down the canyon from Sunol to Niles: the old Southern Pacific track along the north side, now the Niles Canyon Railway, and the newer Union Pacific (formerly the Western Pacific) track a little to the south. At the west end of the canyon are the ruins of the Vallejo Flour Mill, which dates to 1853.

Vargas Plateau Regional Park sits on a plateau in the Fremont Hills of Alameda County, California that overlooks the San Francisco Bay, Niles Canyon, and the cities of Fremont, Union City and Newark. The elevation of the park is about 1,000 feet (300 m), making it an important link with nearby ridge-top parks such as Garin Regional Park, Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park, Mission Peak Regional Preserve, and Sunol Regional Wilderness.

The first Vallejo Flour Mill, in the Niles district of Fremont, California, was built in 1853 by José de Jesús Vallejo (1798–1882), elder brother of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, on his Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda. The Flour Mill was located at the mouth of Niles Canyon, then called Alameda Cañon, which served as the major course of Alameda Creek. A second Flour Mill was built in 1856, the stone foundation of which may still be seen today. The ruins of the Vallejo Flour Mill is located at the northeast corner of Niles Canyon Road (State Route 84) and Mission Boulevard (State Route 238) in Vallejo Mill Historical Park. In 1932, it was designated a California Historical Landmark (#46). A watercolor painting of the 1856 Flour Mill, done by Carmelita Vallejo, J & J Vallejo's daughter then finishing her studies at the San Jose Notre Dame Academy, showed several buildings surrounding a three-story Flour Mill building with a large wooden wheel on the north side. According to the Alameda County Gazette (January 1857), the wheel was the overshot design, 30 feet in diameter and 8 feet broad, and the millstone was 4 feet in diameter. The Flour Mill cost $5,000 and had a capacity of 150 barrels of flour a day.: 12 

On 17 February 1956 in California a United States Marine Corps Douglas R5D-2 Skymaster flying from Marine Corps Air Station El Toro to Naval Air Station Alameda crashed on approach at Niles Canyon, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) northeast of Niles, California. All 35 marines and 5 crew members died. A Marine Corps board of inquiry determined that the flight crew made multiple mistakes.It was the first time this type of aircraft crashed and the third major airplane crash in the Niles Canyon area in the five years since the crash of United Air Lines Flight 615 near Decoto in August 1951.

The Niles Depot Museum is located in the former Southern Pacific Railroad colonnade-style passenger depot built in 1901, and freight depot, located in the Niles District of Fremont, California. The museum is operated by the Niles Depot Historical Foundation and features exhibits and artifacts about area railroads, including the early Southern Pacific Railroad and Western Pacific Railroad, as well as the current Union Pacific Railroad and Amtrak. The museum is also constructing two model railways of Niles and surrounding areas, which are operated by the Tri-City Society of Model Engineers.

The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is located in what is now the historic district of Niles in the city of Fremont, CA. The museum is housed in the Edison Theater, a century-old Nickelodeon movie theater, just half a block from the former site of the Niles Essanay Studios where Broncho Billy and Charlie Chaplin made films in the 1910s. It is dedicated to preserving and showing silent films and their history. The silent film historical work of one of the members of its staff, David Kiehn, was featured on 60 Minutes for demonstrating that a film shot in San Francisco titled A Trip Down Market Street was actually made a few days before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Additionally, when Google made a Google Doodle for April 16, 2011, in celebration of Chaplin's 122nd birthday, they collaborated with the Niles Silent Film Museum to produce the short. The museum houses a large collection of Motion Picture equipment and related artifacts, as well as about 10,000 Silent Films in their archive.

Brightside (formerly, Brightside Station) is an unincorporated community in Alameda County, California. It is located 2.25 miles (3.6 km) west of Sunol.

The California School for the Deaf is a school for deaf children in Fremont, California. The school educates deaf children from all over Northern California. Its campus in Fremont is adjacent to the campus of the California School for the Blind. Its companion school in Southern California is CSD-Riverside.

Shinn (formerly, Shinn Station) is a former unincorporated community, now incorporated into Fremont in Alameda County, California. It lies at an elevation of 69 feet (21 m). The Shinn area is bounded approximately by Peralta Blvd to the south and Niles to the north and forms the northern part of the Parkmont district of Fremont. In the Shinn area is the Shinn Pond and the Shinn Historic Park and Arboretum, where the Shinn house still stands. The Shinn family ran a nursery, importing trees from throughout the Pacific Rim in the 1850s. This large Victorian Shinn house still reflects the family's humble Quaker origins and ambitious pursuits. The home's interior has high ceilings and is adorned with Victorian-era fixtures. But from the original brown wallpaper in the dining room to the shelves of books in the study, it is hardly ostentatious. Their lawn was essentially an advertisement for the nursery business. Today the arboretum includes several trees that range in age from 130 to 150 years old, including a Moreton Bay Fig from Australia, a Belota from Chile and a ginkgo from China.

The Pacific Locomotive Association, Inc. (PLA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the physical aspects and atmosphere of Pacific Coast railroading during the period from 1910 to 1960. The Pacific Locomotive Association operates the Niles Canyon Railway, and has railroad artifacts on display in the Niles Depot Museum in Fremont, California. It also owns a collection of locomotives and other railroad cars, with restorations complete or in progress.

The Golden Gate Railroad Museum (reporting mark GGMX) is a non-profit railroad museum in California that is dedicated to the preservation of steam and passenger railroad equipment, as well as the interpretation of local railroad history.