|
Search for Glendale Condos for Sale
More Info |
Glendale
José María Verdugo, a corporal in the Spanish army from Baja California, received a grant of the Rancho San Rafael in 1798, an area he had been farming since 1784. In 1860 His grandson Teodoro Verdugo built the Verdugo Adobe, which is the oldest building in Glendale. The property is the location of the Oak of Peace where early Californio leaders including Jesus Pico met in 1847 and decided to surrender to Lieutenant Colonel John C. Frémont.
Verdugo's descendants sold the ranch in various parcels, some of which are included in present-day Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, and Highland Park neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
In 1884, residents gathered to form a town and chose the name "Glendale". Residents to the southwest formed "Tropico" in 1887. The Pacific Electric Railroad brought streetcar service in 1904.
Glendale incorporated in 1906, and annexed Tropico 12 years later. An important civic booster of the era was Leslie Coombs Brand (1859-1925), who built an estate in 1904 called El Miradero featuring an eye-catching mansion whose architecture combined characteristics of Spanish, Moorish, and Indian styles, copied from the East Indian Pavilion at the 1893 Columbian World Exposition (World's Fair) held in Chicago, which he visited. Brand loved to fly, and built a private airstrip in 1919 and hosted "fly-in" parties, providing a direct link to the soon-to-be-built nearby Grand Central Airport. The grounds of El Miradero are now city-owned Brand Park and the mansion is the Brand Library, according to the terms of his will. [1]. Brand partnered with Henry E. Huntington to bring the Pacific Electric Railway, or the "Red Cars," to the area. Today, he is memorialized by one of the city's main thoroughfares, Brand Boulevard.