Duncan’s post office opened in 1883, and 13% of its homes were built before 1940
Its Register listing is the Benjamin F. Billingsley House. Its Register listing is the Benjamin F. Billingsley House. Below: 3 old photos and papers, maps from 1914 on, and the census since 1940.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Duncan yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Duncan is a town in Greenlee County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2020 census, Duncan had a population of 694. Duncan is in the Gila River valley, four miles (6 km) west of the Arizona–New Mexico border. The town limits are on both sides of the Gila River, but the primary portion of the town and the entire downtown area lies on the south side of the river. Duncan was founded in the mid-19th century, and the land was added to the United States as a part of the Mexican Cession, and the Gadsden Purchase. The town of Duncan has been destroyed twice by flood and once by fire. The town and unincorporated county surrounding the town are primarily populated by farming, ranching, and mining fam…
Its first post office opened in 1883. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 696 in 2010, 694 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Timeline
Duncan, 1883 to 1960
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Duncan. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1960Duncan sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Duncan.
Every building
Duncan, building by building, 1914–1917
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1914Sheet 1 of 1
Edition
Sheets
BrickWoodStone
Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewArizona small town sheriff. Duncan, Arizona, 1936
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Duncan’s page.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (3), the Library of Congress (9), the National Register of Historic Places (1), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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