Glendale's story begins with William John Murphy, who founded the town in 1892. For a decade, it remained a small agricultural community, its economy tied to the farms spreading across the irrigated desert. Everything changed in 1902 when the Beet Sugar Factory arrived, transforming the sleepy settlement into a growing town. By 1910, Glendale had incorporated, and the demand for housing made the land around the townsite increasingly valuable. Lafayette Myers, president of the Glendale State Bank, recognized the opportunity. Partnering with local businessman A.A. Carrick, he formed a real estate agency to promote the sale of lots in Hansen's new Catlin Court subdivision. The first homes rose in 1914, their wide front porches and low-pitched roofs establishing the bungalow style that would define the neighborhood for decades.

Walk the streets of Catlin Court today and the names on the historic markers read like a roster of early Glendale's who's who. Victor Messinger, the town's first city clerk and founder of its first library, built his home at 7141 N. 59th Avenue in 1897. The Appleby/McRuer House at 7248 N. 58th Drive passed from G.A. Appleby, president of the Commerce Bank, to Duncan McRuer, principal of Glendale High School. Dr. William Kalas, a former mayor, lived in the 1927 house at 5811 W. State Street. John David Howell, the contractor who designed and built the first Glendale High School, constructed his own home at 5854 W. State Avenue in 1919. Floyd Holmes Sine, the first of the Sine brothers to arrive in Glendale, established the Sine Hardware Store and built a home at 7163 N. 58th Drive around 1917.

Among Catlin Court's forty-plus historic structures, one stands alone in Arizona history. The Christian Church Bungalow at 7154 N. 58th Drive, built in 1917 and now known as Manor at Catlin Court, holds the distinction of being the only bungalow church in the state. The structure embodies the neighborhood's dominant architectural style: low-slung, horizontal lines with broad, overhanging eaves and the handcrafted details that defined the Arts and Crafts movement. Other notable bungalows include the Otto Hansen House at 5834 W. Myrtle, where the subdivision's namesake lived, and the C.M. Wood House at 7222 N. 58th Drive, once home to a prominent Glendale pharmacist. The Methodist Church parsonage, built in 1898, was moved to 7142 N. 58th Avenue and now operates as an antique store.

The F.M. Staggs House at 5804 W. Myrtle Avenue began as the home of Frank M. Staggs, a local carpenter and contractor who built it in 1919. Decades later, it became the residence of Marty Robbins, the El Paso native who would become a country music legend. Robbins recorded hits like 'El Paso' and 'A White Sport Coat,' won Grammys, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982, the same year he died. He also raced in NASCAR, finishing in the top ten at the Daytona 500. On June 9, 1992, Catlin Court became the first of ten Glendale districts designated as historic by the National Register of Historic Places, preserving the bungalow neighborhood where Arizona's early twentieth-century middle class established their homes and built a community.