Ten Things Worth Knowing About Glendale

Most people know Glendale for its stadium and its arena, but the city has older and odder stories to tell. Here are ten worth sharing the next time someone visits, from a name nobody can fully explain to peacocks that wander over to the library.

How it started

1. Nobody knows exactly why it's called Glendale. William J. Murphy, who built the Arizona Canal, was already calling his planned townsite Glendale in 1888, four years before the colony was formally founded. The historical society's timeline records the name and the date, but not his reasoning, so the question of where the name came from remains an open one for local history buffs.

2. Glendale began as a dry town. The Temperance Colony of Glendale was founded on February 27, 1892, as a farming community for sober, hardworking families, many of them Brethren farmers from Pennsylvania and the Midwest. Every lot deed carried a clause forbidding anyone to make, sell or distribute liquor on the property. It is a curious beginning for a city whose downtown today includes a German biergarten.

3. The city has two birthdays. The visitor bureau notes that Glendale celebrates February 27, 1892, the day the first residential area was surveyed and platted, as its official birthday. Incorporation came later, on June 18, 1910, and that date had a party of its own this year: on June 18, 2026, the city's 116th birthday, Glendale reopened its renovated council chambers with an F-16 flyover. It also sealed a new time capsule, to be opened on the city's 150th birthday in 2060.

Sugar, peacocks and pavement

4. Glendale was once Sugar City. A beet sugar factory built in 1906 was considered the biggest industrial venture in Maricopa County, and when the town incorporated in 1910 it put the sugar beet on its municipal seal. The industry faded within a decade, but the factory building still stands at 5243 West Glendale Avenue and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

5. The peacocks visit the library. Sahuaro Ranch Historic Park, a fruit ranch homesteaded in 1886, is known for the peacocks that roam its grounds. The Glendale Public Library notes that birds from the ranch often stroll over to the Main Library next door, and it asks visitors not to disturb them. The library itself sits on land that was once part of the ranch.

6. Arizona's first library drive-up window is here. When the Foothills Library opened on July 22, 1999, it was the first library in the state with a drive-up window, and it is still the only Glendale branch with one. A StoryWalk now runs from the Foothills Park playground to the library's front doors.

7. It once claimed every street was paved. According to the visitor bureau's city history, Glendale was in 1948 the only city in Arizona with 100 percent of its streets paved. It is an early bragging right for a place that started as dusty farm lots.

Hills, heat and jets

8. Glendale has its own desert hills. Thunderbird Conservation Park protects about 1,185 acres of the Hedgpeth Hills in north Glendale, with roughly 15 miles of trails. Locals know the drill: the city advises hiking early in the morning or late in the afternoon and carrying more water than you think you'll need. For a regional sense of why, NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Phoenix Sky Harbor count about 111 days a year at 100 degrees or more. The park's three trailhead parking lots are being rebuilt in stages through 2027, while the trails stay open. Afterward, Pizzicata, a few miles south on North 59th Avenue, is run by two partners who grew up in Gualdo Tadino, Italy, and makes handmade pasta and pinsa.

9. Luke Air Force Base is part of Glendale. Luke Field opened in 1941 to train World War II pilots, and it became Luke Air Force Base in 1951. Glendale annexed the base in 1995, which is why the jets overhead are flying over home.

Lights and chocolate

10. Glendale takes its sweets and its lights seriously. Glendale Glitters began in 1994 and lights up Murphy Park each holiday season, from a kickoff weekend just after Thanksgiving through New Year's Day; 2026 is its 33rd season. The Chocolate Affaire, first held in 1996, returns to the Glendale Civic Center each February. Chocolate has a year-round home here too: Cerreta Candy Company, which started in Phoenix in 1968 and has made candy on West Glendale Avenue since around 1990, is run by four generations of the family and offers guided factory tours on weekdays.

Pick any one of these and you have a reason to look at a familiar corner of Glendale a little differently.