The village was originally a Slavic settlement founded under the name "Glikovo". Unlike the rest of Thessaly, Sarantaporo did not join Greece until October 1912 when the town was liberated from the Ottoman Empire after the Battle of Sarantaporo, a Greek victory in the First Balkan War. The Sarantaporo Gorge was the strategic location for the battle. Sarantaporo became a municipality in 1994; one of the first to be created under the Capodistrian Law. The area features archaeological findings dating back to the pre-Classical years up to the Ottoman rule.