Before Echo Park was called Echo Park, the broader area was known as Edendale—a name that captures the aspiration of early settlers who arrived in the 1880s and found the steep hills and narrow canyons both picturesque and cheap. In the 1910s, Edendale became the center of West Coast filmmaking.

Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, home of the Keystone Cops and a training ground for Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, and Gloria Swanson, operated near Glendale Boulevard. The area's rugged terrain provided natural sets; the light was consistent; and the land, being outside the established city, was affordable. By the early 1920s, the studios had migrated to Hollywood proper, but Edendale left behind a tradition of creative industry that the neighborhood never entirely shed.

Echo Park Lake was created as a reservoir in the late nineteenth century and became a public park in the early twentieth. The Red Car streetcar lines ran through the neighborhood until 1955, when the last of Los Angeles's rail lines was retired and the city committed fully to automobile infrastructure.

The lake itself was renovated in 2013 at a cost of $45 million—a project that drained the basin, restored the lotus beds, and upgraded the infrastructure. The renovation made the park more beautiful and also more contested: rising property values followed the investment, and longtime residents who had lived near the lake for decades found themselves priced out.

By 2021, Echo Park Lake had become one of the largest unhoused encampments in Los Angeles, with 179 people living in tents around the perimeter of the lake. The city had fenced off the park in March of that year, citing public health concerns and plans to connect residents with housing services.

On the night of March 25, 2021, the Los Angeles Police Department enforced the closure, arresting protesters who had gathered in solidarity with encampment residents and removing the remaining campers. The operation was widely photographed and debated. Supporters argued the city had provided housing offers before the sweep; critics argued the offers were inadequate and the enforcement was disproportionate. The lake reopened to the public on May 26, 2021.

The neighborhood's combination of hills, Victorian houses, and proximity to downtown has attracted artists and writers throughout its history. Charlie Chaplin lived in Echo Park during his early Hollywood years. Frank Zappa lived here in the 1960s. Leonardo DiCaprio was born in the neighborhood in 1974. Jackson Browne lived near the lake during his formative years as a songwriter.

The Red Car barn on Glendale Boulevard—the former terminus of a streetcar line—survives as a reminder of the transit infrastructure that once connected the neighborhood to the rest of the city. The boats on the lake are still available for rental on weekends. The lotus plants bloom in summer, as they have for as long as anyone can remember.