Interesting Places to Explore in Glendale

Glendale is older than most people who drive through it realize. Fruit ranches were thriving here before statehood, and the city keeps a surprising number of those places, along with gardens, art and a working candy factory, within a few miles of downtown. Even City Hall has a new story: when the renovated civic campus reopened this June, crews revealed a time capsule from 1984 and sealed a new one, to be opened on Glendale's 150th birthday in 2060. Here are eight places worth a second look, with how to visit each.

Downtown: a mosaic and an 1895 tearoom

Start at the free Palmaire Parking Structure downtown. Along its retail promenade at 5835 W. Palmaire Ave., artist Lynn Basa set The Glendale History Walk into the sidewalk in 2008: 59 glass mosaic images that trace the city from open desert and the Arizona Canal through ranches, railroads, Catlin Court's bungalows and the industries that followed. It's outdoors, free and always there.

A block north, the Catlin Court Historic District, platted in 1914, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992. Many of its early houses are now shops and cafés, so you can walk in rather than just admire porches. The Spicery in Our 1895 Home, at 7141 N. 59th Ave., serves lunch and a three-course tea in a Victorian house first lived in by the Messinger family. Martha Campbell opened the tearoom in 1986, and its current owners reopened it in October 2022. The tea needs a reservation at least two days ahead; lunch reservations are recommended.

Two pioneer ranches

At 9802 N. 59th Ave., Historic Sahuaro Ranch preserves 17 acres of a fruit ranch that William Henry Bartlett homesteaded in 1886, after the Arizona Canal made large-scale irrigation possible. You can walk among an 1887 adobe house, a horse barn and blacksmith shop, the 1891 fruit packing house and Main House, a guest house and a 1901 pump house, plus orchards and a rose garden laid out in 1890. Peacocks wander the grounds. The historic area is open from 6 a.m. to sunset, admission is free except during some special events, and the 17 acres are on the National Register. Note that the city's page says house tours aren't being scheduled for now, so plan on exploring the grounds.

Smaller and quieter, Manistee Ranch Park sits near 51st and Northern avenues. Herbert W. Hamilton, a Wisconsin lumber baron, built the ranch house in 1897; the Sands family owned it from 1907 until 1996, when the Glendale Arizona Historical Society acquired the house and the city took on the date orchard. The city maintains the four-acre park with the society, and the old date grove is now a garden of about 11 palm varieties, some more than a century old. The grounds are open sunrise to sunset, and the society opens the antique-furnished house for tours on the first and third Saturdays of the month from October through April; check its site before you go.

Glendale Avenue: candy and sugar

The one ticketed stop on this list is also the sweetest. Cerreta Candy Company started in Phoenix in 1968 and has made candy at 5345 W. Glendale Ave. since around 1990; four generations of the family now run it. Guided factory tours run Monday through Friday at set times from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with samples; arrive ten minutes early to check in.

A short walk east of Cerreta, the Beet Sugar Factory at 5243 W. Glendale Ave. went up in 1906 and was the first Glendale property on the National Register, listed in 1978. From there, the city's register list makes an easy architecture loop: the 1912 Glendale Woman's Club at 7032 N. 56th Ave., the 1918 First National Bank Building at 6838 N. 58th Drive, and the 1926 First United Methodist Church sanctuary at 7102 N. 58th Drive. These are working buildings rather than museums, so enjoy them from the street.

Gardens and art for every sense

The Elsie McCarthy Sensory Garden on North 55th Avenue near Orangewood was funded by a gardener who kept planting after she lost her sight. Designed for visually impaired visitors, it has fragrant and textured plants, water features, a tactile map at the entrance and labyrinth rocks to trace with your fingers. Two pieces of public art live here: Seeing Beyond, a mosaic sculpture with water running through it by Joan Baron and Robert Miley, and SoundBloom, a steel tree of wind chimes by Betsy Andrews and Lichen Frank, made in 2019 with high school students who earned college credit for the work. It's free and outdoors.

Two Glendale libraries double as small galleries. At Foothills Library, 19055 N. 57th Ave., Kathy Bradford's etched glass The Magic Doors has greeted readers since 1998. At Heroes Regional Park Library, 6075 N. 83rd Ave., Pete Goldlust's 2019 work Neighborhood Roots wraps the entry in steel, glass and terrazzo drawings of cotton, sugar beets, quail and dragonflies, a nod to the same farm history you'll see at the ranches. Both are free and indoors, a good choice on a hot afternoon. The city's online public art map has dozens more pieces.

Make a day of it

These places pair well. Start at the History Walk, have lunch in Catlin Court, then drive out to Sahuaro Ranch or east to Cerreta and Manistee Ranch. If you'd rather end downtown, Haus Murphy's at 5739 W. Glendale Ave. has served German food for 26 years, with an outdoor Biergarten. Check each place's own page for hours before you go.