Willow Glen is named for the marshy ground between the Guadalupe River and Los Gatos Creek, thick with willows and cattails. Antonio Suñol of Rancho de los Coches is considered its founder. In 1860 Frank Lewis dug the channel that still carries the Guadalupe River and drained the marsh, and the land became some of the most prized farmland in the valley. Lincoln Avenue, renamed from Willow Glen Road in 1865 after President Lincoln’s assassination, is its main street.
Willow Glen incorporated as a city in 1927 to stop the Southern Pacific from running its line down Lincoln Avenue. Without a sewer system, its high water table made cesspools overflow, and in 1936 residents voted 978 to 871 to join San Jose. The 1950s nativity display that grew into Christmas in the Park began at a Willow Glen mortuary.