In 1964, under then-new mayor, Nicholas B. Blase, Niles was named an "All America City". Niles grew by selectively annexing nearby unincorporated areas of Cook County, the most important for tax revenue purposes being the area that became the Golf Mill Shopping Center. Its population peaked in 1970 at 31,432 people. Blase, the son of Greek immigrants raised in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood and a law and business graduate of University of Notre Dame, had moved to Niles in 1959 and initially worked as a claims adjuster for Allstate Insurance Company. He would become Niles' longest-serving mayor, but resigned in a scandal in 2008 which led to his federal criminal conviction for steering insurance business to cronies. Ironically, Blase was first elected in 1961, when he upset Frank Stankowicz, a former motorcycle cop who had won election first as village clerk, then had won election and re-election as mayor for two decades before passing the gavel to the young upstart. Blase's "New Era Party" ran a door-to-door campaign against corruption (police turning a blind eye to local gambling houses, and prostitution flourishing near the Chicago border) and builder favoritism. During his nearly five decades as mayor, Blase established a free bus service, a new village hall, a senior and fitness center, and a new police station, as well as jobs for nearly 500 municipal employees. Blase resigned in 2008 amid federal charges that he participated in an insurance kickback scheme. Several months later he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion, and admitted that he had pressured local businesses to buy insurance from a friend's agency in return for a share of the commissions, receiving more than $420,000 over a period of more than 30 years. In 2010 Blase, then 81 years old, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. After serving his term – first in federal prison, then in a halfway house, and then in home confinement – he returned to live in Niles. In 2011, his name was removed from the plaza outside the village hall and post office. Blase died in 2019.