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Duncan, Arizona

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1994. It stands in the Duncan census division. It lies in ZIP code area 85534. It lies near Blackfield Canyon. The Survey maps it on the Duncan quadrangle. 694 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,655 feet above sea level.

Duncan within Greenlee County

On record in Duncan

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Duncan fell from 696 to 694 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010696
2020694-2 (-0%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 14 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Photographs

3 photographs, 1936 to 2018

Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.

Arizona small town sheriff. Duncan, Arizona
Arizona small town sheriff. Duncan, Arizona
Lange, Dorothea, photographer, 1936. Library of Congress
Almost all the businesses along the main street of Duncan, a small town of about 700 residents in Greenlee County in eastern Arizona, near the New Mexico border, are on one side of the railroad tracks that run through town
Almost all the businesses along the main street of Duncan, a small town of about 700 residents in Greenlee County in eastern Arizona, near the New Mexico border, are on one side of the railroad tracks that run through town
Highsmith, Carol M, 2018. Library of Congress
The tiny Hotel Duncan, a small town of about 700 residents in Greenlee County in eastern Arizona, near the New Mexico border
The tiny Hotel Duncan, a small town of about 700 residents in Greenlee County in eastern Arizona, near the New Mexico border
Highsmith, Carol M, 2018. Library of Congress

Fires near this place

7 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Duncan between 2006 and 2017, burning about 9 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Equipment and vehicle use5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Arson/incendiarism1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
17 June 2007Equipment and vehicle use2.2 acresNew Mexico State Forestry Divisionnot named
17 June 2006Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeBEAR MTN
17 May 2012Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeINDIAN ROCKS
17 May 2009Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresNew Mexico State Forestry DivisionOLSEN
28 November 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreGila District Office373
28 November 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreGila District Office373B
12 January 2014Equipment and vehicle use3.4 acresArizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State OfficeWOODS CANYON

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Greenlee County

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 11 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Duncan: 4 prospects, 3 past producers, 2 producers, 1 occurrence. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Diatomite, Manganese, Tungsten. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Black BeautyTungstenPast Producer
CarslileCalcium, Silica, Gold, SilverPast Producer
Luckie MineManganeseProspect1963
Diatomite ProspectDiatomiteUnknown
Duncan Area Diatomite DepositsDiatomiteOccurrenceDiatomite
Stephens DiatomiteDiatomitePast Producer
ADOT Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
ADOT Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProspect
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProspect

Every working recorded in Greenlee County

Storms near this place

7 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Duncan in 7 storm reports between 1999 and 2022: 3 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2022FloodDuncan$250,000Heavy rain upstream in New Mexico caused the Gila River to flood at Duncan, AZ. Floodwaters caused the closure of Highway 70 and the temporary evacuation of a number of residents. Several homes and a couple businesses experienced minor flooding. The bakery near the corner of Highway 70 and Hill St. sustained the most significant damage from floodwaters. Levees between the river and the highway were damaged by the floodwaters.
August 2002Flash FloodDuncan$100,000no account filed
July 2002Thunderstorm WindDuncan$40,000no account filed
August 2014Flash FloodDuncan$20,000Three inches of rain in less than an hour caused flash flooding in Duncan. One home was flooded with water up to 3 feet deep and damage was sustained to a car wash structure. Two to three feet of water cover part of Highway 70 on the northwest edge of Duncan.
July 2010Thunderstorm WindDuncan$5,000Severe thunderstorm winds caused damage near the village of Sheldon in Greenlee County. Several trees were uprooted, and a backyard trampoline was blown 100 yards by the thunderstorm winds. Doors of mobile homes were blown inward.
September 2004Flash FloodDuncan-Localized heavy rainfall caused several streets to become flooded and required closure. Mud and rocks covered U.S. Route 70, after a reported 18 inches of water ran across the road.
June 1999Thunderstorm WindDuncan-Trees blown over

Every storm recorded in Greenlee County

Newspapers printed here

489 digitised pages

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 122 issues, 489 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.

NewspaperPublished
Duncan Arizonian1908 to 1915

What the paper printed

11,286 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 4 issues all from 1911, 11,286 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.

These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.

IssuePaper Length
1911-05-24Duncan Arizonian3,192 words
1911-07-19Duncan Arizonian3,136 words
1911-09-20Duncan Arizonian2,551 words
1911-11-15Duncan Arizonian2,407 words

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Fox2.3 miles13
Franklin3.3 miles14
Sheldon7.4 miles12
Apache Grove11.2 miles12
York13.0 miles12
Three Way17.0 miles12
Guthrie17.4 miles12
Aragon Place21.9 miles12

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on DuncanAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q985303The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 4189. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.