Buffalo Springs is a bowl-shaped basin and one of the state's three major stamping grounds, formed when bison herds trampled the soil by the spring at the junction of several trails used by migrating herds. After the bison left, the spring served the area's human inhabitants who settled the town of Herndonsville, later Stamping Ground, in the early 1800s. Local residents and industry used the spring: a tanyard operated in Stamping Ground as early as 1814, a whiskey distillery opened on the site about 1869, the new Buffalo Springs Distillery opened in late 1934, water works was developed in 1934, later owners were Stagg Co. in 1941 and Schenley Distillery in 1951, and it closed in 1968.