Stamford's story begins in 1641, when 28 families from Wethersfield, Connecticut, purchased land from the local Siwanoy people and settled at the mouth of the Rippowam River on Long Island Sound. The settlement took the name Stamford the following year, after its English counterpart. For generations, Stamford developed as a farming and shipping community, its canal and harbor connecting the town to trade with New York and the West Indies.

The railroad's arrival in the 1840s transformed Stamford into an industrial center, anchored by companies like the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company, founded by locksmith Linus Yale in 1868, and inventor Simon Ingersoll, whose innovations included the friction clutch and an early steam-driven wagon. The borough of Stamford incorporated in 1830, the city followed in 1893, and in 1949 the city and surrounding town formally merged into one municipality.

Stamford's modern identity took shape starting around 1970, when major corporations began relocating their headquarters from New York City to a newly rebuilt downtown of modern skyscrapers. By the 1980s and 90s, Stamford had the third-highest concentration of Fortune 500 company headquarters in the entire country, trailing only New York City and Chicago.