Mailman on the road again , today I’m heading to....
HISTORIC DOWNTOWN GLENDALE , Part one.......the search for a historically important hardware store.
Look up hardware stores in Glendale Az and this is one that will come up. Sines Ace hardware, no big deal, Ace hardware stores are everywhere.
But that’s not the whole story. I grew up in this part of the Valley, all the little suburb towns on the western edge of Phoenix all just kinda run together. For as far back as I could remember, it didn’t matter where you lived, Sine Hardware had a reputation. Any time you needed something special or hard to find, someone would always suggest Sine Hardware, it was not this place back then, it has much deeper roots than that.
Let’s turn back the clock One Hundred Eleven years ago. See that crowd of men standing out on that dirt road? They are standing in front of the old livery stable. The one Floyd Sine just purchased in order to tear down.
This was the historic entry point to the town of Glendale. Beyond those men you can see the railroad track and the open air building that was the train station. Floyd wanted this prime location for his new hardware store, which would feature a second story boarding house for weary rail travelers.
Floyd built that hardware store in 1911, and with his brothers Tuck and Van, and so began their small empire in the town of Glendale.
Floyd is also credited with creating the towns water supply. You can see the water tower behind his store, he built that in 1911 and then ran water pipes to the town businesses.
Later the Sine Brothers expanded their business empire , they opened a machine shop in 1916, notice the ceiling covered with shafts and pulleys and drive belts for all the machinery.
They also opened up a garage.
PLEASE DO NOT TALK TO THE MAN WORKING. NO TOOLS LOANED
Some old street views from the early 1900’s
In the photo below, notice the old Firestone business, with the antique gas pumps out at the curb.
The arrow shows Sine hardware.
And a few inside the store photos.
The Sine family could fill chapters in the history of this town. Most people today , I’m sure couldn’t tell you who they were. As I said at the beginning, the hardware store was built to be the first thing you saw coming into town, but all of that has changed. What used to be Main Street is now a dead end, stub of a road. The railroad used to be the primary line of travel, and the tracks are still there, but now it’s just mile long cargo trains going by.
Main Street now comes in from a different part of town, it’s all about cars now. I had to do some digging to figure out where this historic old building was, as I said, a dusty little side street now, no traffic. The surrounding buildings have been torn down and unless you knew the significance of this building , you wouldn’t look twice at it.
Here it is as it sits today.
The only “people “ I saw on this street were a couple of curious chihuahuas.
Directly across the road from the hardware store / boarding house was this old bank building. Built in 1909 , it was originally a billiards hall, converted to a bank in 1918.
I hope some of you found this interesting. It always amazes me when you unearth the history that surrounds you.
As I’ve said, I grew up around here, I’ve spent countless hours walking these neighborhoods. And you drive right by these places and never realize the connections that go back , sometimes to the very beginnings of a town.
In Part 2, I’m going back to 1968. I will try and find some places from my childhood and see what’s become of them.
Later Bob