Stamping Ground History

A town’s name imprinted in the dust

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Stamping Ground was named for a noise: the stamping of hundreds of hooves of impatient buffalo waiting to drink from Buffalo Spring. The bowl-shaped basin is actually one of Kentucky’s three major “stamping grounds” sitting at the junction of trails used by migrating herds.

Adventurers Will McConnell and Charles LeCompte discovered Buffalo Spring in 1775 and called it Buffalo Stamping Ground. It is located on an ancient migratory path the Native Americans called Alant-I-wamiowee, or buffalo path—a wide swath of land cut into the forest that has left a permanent imprint at the spring. This path was also used by the Mound Builders and, later, pioneer settlers.

The Alant-I-wamiowee is likely the roadbed that forms the road from Stamping Ground toward Georgetown, where migrating herds would ford Elkhorn Creek at a place known as the Great Crossing.

Sometime around 1790, Anthony Lindsay built a fort comprising three cabins and room for stock. Located near LeCompte’s Run—a branch of the Elkhorn named for Charles LeCompte—this pioneer station became the first settlement in Stamping Ground and kicked off a series of firsts, including the establishment of McConnell’s Church in 1795 and the Post Office in 1814. Stamping Ground was incorporated on January 24, 1834, and by 1880, had four stores and about 300 people.

The population has more than doubled and businesses and city services have multiplied. It is a bike-friendly town and home to the Historic Buffalo GeoTrail geocaching trail and the Buffalo Gals Homemakers Barn Quilt Trail. It is also a haven for outdoor lovers with nearby Kleber Wildlife Management Area and Skullbuster Trails at the Lytles Fork Recreation Area. Still, present-day Stamping Ground remains a quiet, historic community surrounded by beautiful countryside.

Sources for the research for this history include Scott County Kentucky – A History, published in 1993 by The Scott County Historical Society, Georgetown, KY. Lindsey Apple, Frederick A. Johnston and Ann Bolton Bevins, editors; and A History of Scott County As Told By Selected Buildings, revised 1981 edition, by Ann Bolton Bevins.