Niles is a city in southern Trumbull County, Ohio, United States, situated at the confluence of the Mahoning River and Mosquito Creek. The city’s population was 18,443 at the 2020 census. It is a suburb of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area.

Located in the nation’s former industrial belt, the city’s economy focused initially on iron manufacturing but higher diversified to enlarge steel and glass production. After the subside of the manufacturing sector throughout the northern United States in the 1970s, Niles has adapted to become a retail hub for the northern Mahoning Valley, with evolve centered in the region of the Eastwood Mall complex and along the U.S. Route 422 corridor. The Mahoning Valley Scrappers, an MLB Draft League affiliate, play at Eastwood Field in Niles.

Niles was founded in 1806 by James Heaton, who owned one of the first iron-ore direction plants in Ohio. The town originally went by the read out of Heaton’s Furnace but was progressive renamed Nilestown, after Hezekiah Niles (editor of the Niles Register, a Baltimore newspaper). In 1843, the proclaim was abbreviated to Niles. In the in advance 19th century, Heaton built a forge and, later, a charcoal blast furnace in the area just east of what is now the city’s central park, on the west side of Mosquito Creek. Heaton is attributed with producing the first bar iron in Ohio.

Niles’ iron industry thrived until the late 19th century, when the economic depression of 1873 brought practically the break of the community’s largest industrial firm, James Ward and Company. Plans to restructure the local iron industry floundered because of the exorbitant cost of modernizing antiquated mills. By the yet to be 1900s, however, Niles was the site of companies including Ohio Galvanizing, Sykes Metal, the Niles Glass Works of the General Electric Company, and the Niles Iron and Steel Roofing Company. Between 1900 and 1920, the city’s population swelled from 7,468 to slightly over 13,000. The community’s efforts to rebuild its industry suffered a the theater setback in the 1910s. Niles was one of many cities affected by statewide floods that struck in the spring of 1913. On Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, heavy rain throughout Ohio, combined later ice and snow that was still on the ground, precipitated colossal flooding. Flooding of the Mahoning River left extensive broken and numerous casualties in Niles. Damage exceeded $3 million, and 428 people were stated dead.