During the Yuan Dynasty Niujie was located in proximity to and outside of the main Beijing city wall, and it had the name Willow River Village. Dru C. Gladney, author of "Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic", wrote that according to stories from that Dynasty, Han people rarely walked in the neighborhood alone. In addition, the stories state that during the dynasty, 2,953 households resided on Niujie. Wenfei Wang, Shangyi Zhou, and Cindy Fan wrote that "peripheral location reflected separation between the Hui people living there and the Mongolian residents living within the city wall." In 1544 an outer city wall was established and Willow River Village was within this outer city wall. Wenfei Wang, Shangyi Zhou, and Cindy Fan wrote that the community "was still considered peripheral to the city proper where most Han Chinese lived."