Long before European contact, the area that is now Milpitas was inhabited by the Ohlone people, specifically the Tamyen and Chochenyo groups, who lived along the resource-rich creeks of the Santa Clara Valley. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Spanish arrived, establishing the Mission San José nearby. The modern city's name derives from the Spanish word "milpa," meaning cornfield, often translated as "place of little cornfields."
In 1835, José María Alviso was granted Rancho Milpitas by the Mexican government. The Alviso Adobe, built in the mid-19th century, still stands today as a historically significant local landmark. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Milpitas remained a quiet, rural farming community known for its orchards, asparagus, and peas.
The defining turning point for Milpitas occurred in the early 1950s when the Ford Motor Company decided to build a massive auto assembly plant in the area. To avoid being annexed by the rapidly expanding city of San Jose, Milpitas residents voted to incorporate as an independent city on January 26, 1954. The arrival of the Ford plant brought thousands of jobs and spurred the development of neighborhoods like Sunnyhills, which made history as one of the first racially integrated union-built housing developments in the United States.
The Ford plant closed in 1983, but Milpitas rapidly pivoted to the burgeoning high-tech industry. The former auto plant was repurposed into the Great Mall of the Bay Area in 1994. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Milpitas transformed into an integral part of Silicon Valley, attracting major technology campuses, dense transit-oriented developments, and a highly diverse, highly educated population.