Where to Stay in Glendale, Arizona

What is Glendale known for?

State Farm Stadium stands in Glendale as the home ground of the Arizona Cardinals, and the crowds it pulls have turned an old farm town into an events destination for the whole metropolitan area. Shopping does the rest. Arrowhead Towne Center takes the retail traffic, the Catlin Court Historic District keeps the bungalow streets of the older town intact, and The Bead Museum sits among the city's named institutions.

What are the main landmarks in Glendale?

Sugar started it. The Glendale beet sugar factory stands among the city's named landmarks, alongside the First National Bank of Glendale Building and the Glendale Grammar School One-room Class Building, which together sketch the town that existed long before the stadium. Two historic districts survive.

Catlin Court Historic District and Floralcroft Historic District carry the bungalow blocks, and the Glendale High School Auditorium, the Jonas McNair House, and The Bead Museum complete the roll.

What is the history of Glendale?

Glendale counts its beginnings from 1887. The town took shape on Maricopa County farmland before the surrounding valley had much reason to notice it, and the Glendale beet sugar factory gave the early settlement an industry to go with its irrigated fields. Bungalows followed.

The blocks now protected as the Catlin Court Historic District and the Floralcroft Historic District date from the town's first decades, and the Glendale Grammar School One-room Class Building and the First National Bank of Glendale Building survive from the same stretch of years. Jonas McNair House belongs to the same roll. Phoenix reached the border.

Glendale became a suburb of the state capital as the metropolitan area spread across the Valley of the Sun, and the farm town it had been survived in the historic districts and in the name of the beet sugar factory. Sport arrived late. State Farm Stadium brought the Arizona Cardinals and a run of large events, Arrowhead Towne Center brought the shopping traffic, and what draws outsiders to Glendale belongs almost wholly to that newer era.

The city limits run right against those of Phoenix. The older streets are untouched by any of it.

Where is Glendale?

Glendale shares a boundary with Phoenix. The city occupies part of the broad basin that Arizona calls the Valley of the Sun, spreading across Maricopa County in the low, wide street pattern the whole metropolitan area uses. There is no natural edge.

Where Glendale stops and Phoenix starts is a matter of signage, and the same holds for the open ground beyond Arrowhead Towne Center.

What is the climate of Glendale?

The Valley of the Sun earns its name. Glendale takes the subtropical heat of the basin, which pushes the outdoor season into the winter half of the year and empties the streets of the Catlin Court Historic District at midday in summer. Evenings cool slowly.

Shade and water dictate the routine, so an afternoon spent inside The Bead Museum or Arrowhead Towne Center is a practical decision from June through September rather than a preference.

How do you get to Glendale?

Everyone drives in. Glendale meets Phoenix directly across the shared boundary, and the freeway system of Maricopa County is what makes State Farm Stadium reachable from the far side of the Valley of the Sun on a match night. Event traffic is the exception.

On Arizona Cardinals days the approaches load early, and arriving hours ahead of kickoff is standard practice rather than caution.