Glendale began in the 1800s as a rest stop and watering hole on the major stagecoach route along the Cherry Creek Trail. In 1952, the City of Glendale was incorporated.

The settling of Glendale: 1880's
The incorporation date of Glendale: 1952

The city of Glendale is completely surrounded by the City of Denver forming a municipal island within Denver.

Glendale, Colorado: a brief history. In 1859, following William Greene Russell’s discovery of gold along the South Platte River and the 1858 "Pike’s Peak or Bust" Gold Rush, brothers Samuel and Jonas Brantner were among a group of settlers who emigrated to Colorado from Ohio. Hoping to capitalize on the wagon travel along the Smoky Hill Trail that was bringing more miners to the Denver area each day, the Brantners selected a site on Cherry Creek about four miles – a day’s wagon travel – southeast of what is now downtown Denver. They built a two-story log cabin which is now Denver’s oldest remaining structure. The Brantners’ cabin, named the Four Mile House, changed hands several times in the next few years, becoming a stage stop and tavern, a trading post, and after the railroad reached Denver in 1870, a dairy farm. The dairy’s owners, Levi and Millie Booth, provided butter, stamped with a rose pattern, to Denver’s five-star Brown Palace Hotel, which continues to serves rose-patterned butter. The 6/10ths of a square mile surrounding the Four Mile House and dairy farm was incorporated as the City of Glendale in 1952.

Glendale is one of the Denver Metro area’s most commercially developed cities, with over 2.2 million feet of commercial space. There are only three single family residences, with most of its some four thousand residents living in multi-family housing.