In 1868 Yale & Towne began making Yale locks here, and Stamford became a manufacturing city as much as a harbor one. The rail line to New York turned it into a commuter town and, later, a corporate-headquarters city — but underneath the office towers it is still the harbor town on the Sound, with the oyster beds, the lighthouse of 1882, and Shippan Point reaching out into the water.
Our Stamford design carries an oyster shell beneath an arched STAMFORD and the line Connecticut · Est. 1636, printed in a worn, woodcut style. The oyster is Long Island Sound itself — the shellfish water this harbor town was built beside — and the 1636 date marks Connecticut's colonial founding. It reads like an old harbor-crate stamp: not the commuter-rail Stamford of the timetables, but Rippowam on the Sound, the colonial port under a modern city.
Why People Visit Stamford, CT
Stamford balances harbor and city — sailboats on the Sound, a downtown skyline, and four centuries of history from Rippowam to the rail line. It is a Gold Coast harbor town an hour from Manhattan, with the water, the parks, and that one-of-a-kind church on the hill.
