Stamford was known as Rippowam by the Siwanoy Native American inhabitants to the region, and the very first European settlers to the area also referred to it as such. The present name is after the town of Stamford, Lincolnshire, England.^[13] The deed to Stamford was signed on July 1, 1640, between Captain Turner of the New Haven Colony and Chief Ponus. By the 18th century, one of the primary industries of the town was merchandising by water, which was possible due to Stamford’s proximity to New York.

In 1692, Stamford was home to a less famous witch trial than the well-known Salem witch trials, which also occurred in 1692. The accusations were less fanatical and on a smaller scale, but they also grew to prominence through gossip and hysterics.^[14]

New Canaan officially separated from Stamford when it incorporated as a town in 1801, followed by Darien in 1820.

Starting in the late 19th century, New York residents built summer homes on the shoreline, and even back then there were some who moved to Stamford permanently and started commuting to Manhattan by train, although the practice became more popular later. Stamford incorporated as a city in 1893.

In 1950, the U.S. Census Bureau reported the city’s population as 94.6% white and 5.2% black.^[15]

In the 1960s and 1970s, Stamford’s commercial real estate boomed as corporations relocated from New York City to peripheral areas.^[16] A massive urban redevelopment campaign during that time resulted in a downtown with many tall office buildings. The F.D. Rich Company was the city-designated urban renewal developer of the downtown area in an ongoing redevelopment project that was contentious, beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s. The company put up what was the city’s tallest structure, One Landmark Square, at 21 floors high, and the GTE building (now One Stamford Forum), along with the Marriott Hotel, the Stamford Town Center and many of the other downtown office buildings. One Landmark Square has since been dwarfed by the new 34-story Trump Parc Stamford condominium tower, and then again by the Atlantic Station development, another project by the Rich Company in partnership with Cappelli Enterprises.^[17] Over the years, other developers have joined in building up the downtown, a process that continued, with breaks during downturns in the economy, through the 1980s and 1990s and into the new century.

Since 2008, an 80-acre mixed-use redevelopment project for the Stamford’s Harbor Point neighborhood has added additional growth south of the city’s downtown area. The redevelopment plan included 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m²) of new residential, retail, office and hotel space, and a marina. In July 2012, roughly 900 of the projected 4,000 Harbor Point residential units had been constructed.^[18] New restaurants and recreational activities have come up in the Harbor Point area, which is considered as New Stamford. From 2008 to 2017, the city issued permits for 4,341 housing units.^[19][20]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., residents of New York fled to Stamford and its metropolitan area.^[21][22]