The Return of Buffalo Springs (Sort of)

 

Stamping Ground is a small town in Kentucky's Scott County (pop. 780). It is about 25 miles northwest of Lexington and eight miles from Georgetown, the county seat. Settled in 1790, it was named for the bison-trampled earth around a fruitful spring. 

After the herds left, that spring was turned to whiskey production. There was a distillery on the site for 100 years.

The last one, known as Buffalo Springs Distillery, was founded early in the 20th century. It sold a Buffalo Springs Bourbon, and another one called Boots and Saddle. It probably sold most of its output in bulk to brokers or rectifiers. 

After Prohibition the plant was substantially rebuilt, as pictured on the postcard above. The main buildings were limestone, a very traditional building material in Kentucky, but the design was modern with many large windows. Otis Beam, one of the seven distiller sons of Joe Beam, was its distiller. Local at first but owned by Seagram’s at the end, Buffalo Springs Distillery closed for good in the 1960s. 

Essentially abandoned, its buildings stood empty for the next 40 years. Like many distillery sites I visited in the 1990s, it felt like Kentucky's version of a European castle ruin. There were no fences or "keep out" signs. All the equipment was long gone and only a few walls still stood, including a grand one more-or-less intact at the front with no glass in its soaring windows. It reminded me of the "Highlander" movies, when the energy released by a Highlander triumph makes every nearby window explode.

The buildings are gone now but the spring still flows, and a few remnants survive. The site is now Buffalo Springs Park. One curious memento of the distillery is a concrete and rock structure adjoining several large, circular concrete pads. On September 12, 1935, the distillery held a burgoo party for the town and those concrete circles provided a firm base for massive pots of stew. 

Buffalo Springs was typical of the many small-town distilleries that once abounded in the region. It bought local corn, gave away livestock feed, and was one of the town’s few sources of non-farm employment. In the pre-Prohibition era, distilling typically didn't begin until after the fall harvest so many of those seasonal employees were the farmers whose corn was being distilled.

In its day, Buffalo Springs was a largely anonymous link in a production chain. It processed an agricultural product into a more useful and profitable commodity. It made a nice profit on the whiskey it sold as its own brands, less on bulk sales. It did not give tours. It did not have a gift shop. Although its time ran out, how many businesses of any kind reach the century mark?

When Buffalo Springs shut down, America’s entire domestic distilled spirits industry was contracting and consolidating. As it shrunk, no one expected distilleries like Buffalo Springs to return, but modern craft distilleries now play a similar role in many communities in Kentucky and throughout the country. In this they have followed the lead of small wineries and breweries, but with unique characteristics of their own. History doesn't repeat but it rhymes.