Stamping Ground, KY

Stamping Ground grew around Buffalo Springs, a salt spring where migrating buffalo stamped down the soil waiting their turn to drink. William McConnell and Charles LeCompte encountered it in 1775, and Anthony Lindsay built a station nearby around 1790. The town was laid out in 1817 and incorporated in 1834, but the old trail logic still shows: the Alant-o-wamiowee, or Buffalo Path, ran through the area toward Georgetown. A tanyard, woolen mill, and distilleries later clustered around the spring, and a 1974 tornado nearly destroyed the town. Stamping Ground is a Scott County place with a name that makes more sense once you stand by the water.