The district is centered on an alameda (Spanish for tree-lined street), a historic portion of El Camino Real connecting Downtown San Jose to Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and includes the smaller, surrounding neighborhoods to the north and east, like College Park and St. Leo's.

[2] The residents of the pueblo used the tree-lined path to attend Sunday Mass at the mission chapel prior to the construction of St. Joseph's Church.

[3] The San Jose and Santa Clara Railroad along the Alameda was the first interurban railroad in California when it opened with horsecars in 1868, and the second electric streetcar line in California (after that in San Diego) and the first interurban electric streetcar in the West when it reopened in 1888 with an underground third rail.

Brooke Hart, whose murder led to San Jose's most well-known lynching, lived with his family at 1717 The Alameda.

[1] The Alameda is the name of both the street which forms a historic portion of El Camino Real and the surrounding district.