Named after a farm which previously occupied the land, the Springboig area stayed in Lanarkshire when most of the surrounding territory at Shettleston was transferred into Glasgow in 1912 – it remained in the Bothwell constituency along with Mount Vernon and Baillieston, and did not formally join the city until a reorganisation under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

The first housing in the area was a few streets of sandstone semi-detached villas and terraces,^[1] constructed around the turn of the 20th century and are still present today. This was followed in the 1930s by a larger development consisting mostly of cottage flats,^[2] then by another expansion to the north in the late 1940s involving steel-framed houses^[3] and a "quadrangle" of distinctive tenements with rounded bay windows.^[4] This was prior to the construction of the much larger neighbouring schemes at Cranhill, Barlanark, Craigend, Garthamlock, Ruchazie, Easterhouse, Easthall and Wellhouse, which lie to the north and east of Springboig, as well as Greenfield to its immediate west, all of which were built between the 1950s and 1960s to alleviate the post-war housing shortage in the city.^[5][6]

There were two facilities for juvenile offenders and others requiring specialist care in the area: Larchgrove Remand Home/Assessment Centre and Glasgow Truant Industrial School/St John's School Springboig,^[7][8] both of which have closed and have been subject to investigations of abuse by staff of the young people in their care (particularly at Larchgrove in the 1970s).^[9][10]