page_title: Willow Glen, San Jose
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Willow Glen, San Jose / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of a historic home on the National Register of Historic Places and a California Historic Landmark in w:San Jose, California.
context_page_description: Willow Glen is a neighborhood of San Jose, California, in Santa Clara County. Formerly its own municipality, the community was annexed by San Jose in 1936 and it remains relatively independent with a suburban feel. The neighborhood has walkable tree-lined streets, diverse architecture, specialty shops, and independent businesses. The historic downtown on Lincoln Avenue between Willow Street and Minnesota Avenue is a well-known destination, with a variety of restaurants and shops. Today, Willow Glen continues to experience high property valuation and it is considered one of the most desirable residential neighborhoods in San Jose.
context_section_description: The neighborhood began in the mid-1800s as Rancho Los Coches (Sunol) and Rancho San Juan Bautista, Mexican land grants adjacent to the San Jose pueblo. By the 1860s the small unincorporated community needed its first school, and Willow Glen Elementary School was founded in 1863 on land donated by Ira Cottle. Willow Glen continued as an unincorporated community until the 1920s, when the City of San Jose ordered the Southern Pacific Railroad to re-route the Southern Pacific Railroad trunk line which at that time was going down Fourth Street. The Southern Pacific then proposed to re-route down Lincoln Avenue. In order to forestall that attempt, Willow Glen was incorporated as a city in 1927. The railroad was instead re-routed to its current route through a then-unincorporated area now known as North Willow Glen, where its principal user is now Caltrain.
  Being a city, however, required thinking about issues such as sewage. Willow Glen had no sewer system – individual homes had their own cesspools or septic systems. Because the area was marshy before being drained for Willow Glen, the high water table resulted in raw sewage often spilling above-ground from flooded cesspools. Rather than build their own very expensive sewage treatment system, in 1936 Willow Glen's residents opted to be annexed to San Jose and be linked to San Jose's sewage system, the measure passing by a vote of 17 to 38.
  Lincoln Avenue was renamed from "Willow Glen Road" in 1865, shortly after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
caption: The Roberto-Suñol historical site
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