Saint Mark's

Saint Mark's Church was one of the pioneer churches of Glendale, founded in the late 1880s when the area was still almost entirely pasture and farmlands with a population of only a few hundred. Among these early settlers was a small colony of English expatriates who had come to southern California for its healthy climate. The first Episcopal services were held during the summer of 1888 in the parlor of Henry J. Moore, an English farmer living on Adams Street. That original congregation, probably about twenty in number, was mostly drawn from three large English families, but quickly grew. Needing more space, services were moved to the small three-room Verdugo Schoolhouse at the corner of what is now Chevy Chase and Broadway.

In 1893, the congregation began work on its own church, building on land donated by Erskine Mayo Ross and located at the northeast corner of Broadway and Isabel. The building, a small wooden "stick" style Victorian Gothic, was sufficiently completed in 1893 to be useable for services. Around that same time, the congregation decided to change the name of the church to Saint Mark's. But final completion of the church building was delayed for almost ten years owing to the Depression of the 1890s that hit southern California particularly hard.

Between final completion in 1903 and 1913, the congregation grew, and in 1913 the church building was physically picked up and moved to a new location on the northeast corner of Louise and Harvard, closer to the new center of town along Brand Boulevard. The following year, on April 22, 1914, the mission was organized as a self-supporting parish church

In 1935, Saint Mark's called as its new rector the Rev. Clarance H. Parlour, who led the parish for the next 27 years. Saint Mark's grew to be one of the largest churches in the Los Angeles Diocese. Soon the congregation had completely outgrown its existing church. When the Second World War ended, and through the benevolence of a couple of its parishioners, Saint Mark's acquired a prime location at the southeast corner of Brand Boulevard and Dryden Street. On this spot in 1948 it built its present church building, designed by the prominent ecclesiastical architect Carleton M. Winslow. The first service in the church was the Midnight Mass, December 24, 1948.