About 1922, J. H. Nicolaides overheard two state highway engineers discussing the route the Arrowhead Trail Highway would take in southern Nevada. Realizing a service station would be needed where the road crossed the Muddy River, he identified a forty-acre parcel along the route, borrowed money, and bought the land at a tax auction. In 1924 he began building his station. When C. C. Boyer, the Nevada state highway engineer for the road, told him he would have to move it 20 feet because it stood too close to the highway right-of-way, Nicolaides refused, saying the state had no right-of-way over the property. Boyer checked and found that it did not. Nicolaides then told the state where he wanted the road to pass his station, and the state moved the route in exchange for a right-of-way. He named the site Glendale for the view from the hill behind his station, a name that also led to his nickname, "Glendale Nick." He sold the station in 1926, but it and the surrounding business continued serving travelers nearly a century later.