Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Willows Willows, CA

Willows is the county seat of Glenn County, a farming county in the Sacramento Valley that split off from Colusa County in 1891 and was named for Dr. Hugh J. Glenn, once the largest landowner in the area.

Willows was established as a town in 1876 with a general merchandise store, and its post office - opened in 1862 as Willow - had its name changed to Willows in 1916.

Willows was incorporated on January 16, 1886, and it became the Glenn County seat when the county was organized in 1891, with the county courthouse and jail built in 1894.

Willows had a population of 6,293 at the 2020 census, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Willows has about 2,214 households, Census QuickFacts reports, in a city where 98.1% of residents live in households.

Willows hosts the headquarters offices of the Mendocino National Forest, which covers about one million acres of federal land in the mountains west of town, along with regional offices of the California Highway Patrol, the DMV, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Thunderhill Raceway Park, seven miles west of Willows, is the venue for the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, the longest automobile endurance race in the United States, held each December.

Willows High School's teams are known as the Honkers, a nod to the geese that fill the surrounding rice fields and wetlands of the Sacramento Valley flyway.

During World War II, the Willows Auxiliary Field, operating from 1942 to 1945, was used to train American pilots.

Willows' current post office building, built in 1918, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.