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.
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
Benjamin F. Billingsley Houselisted 1983
Population over time
2 figuresDuncan 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 696 | |
| 2020 | 694 | -2 (-0%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 14 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1954 USGS Silver City quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1958 USGS Silver City quadrangle1:250000
- 1960 USGS Duncan quadrangle1:62500, 4 printings
- 1962 USGS Silver City quadrangle1:250000
- 1986 USGS Duncan quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1994 USGS Safford quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Photographs
3 photographs, 1936 to 2018Taken 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.
Lange, Dorothea, photographer, 1936. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2018. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2018. Library of Congress
Fires near this place
7 since 2006Regional 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 use | 5 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 June 2007 | Equipment and vehicle use | 2.2 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | not named |
| 17 June 2006 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office | BEAR MTN |
| 17 May 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office | INDIAN ROCKS |
| 17 May 2009 | Equipment and vehicle use | 2.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | OLSEN |
| 28 November 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Gila District Office | 373 |
| 28 November 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Gila District Office | 373B |
| 12 January 2014 | Equipment and vehicle use | 3.4 acres | Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office | WOODS CANYON |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
10 of 11 shownRegional 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 | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Beauty | Tungsten | Past Producer | ||
| Carslile | Calcium, Silica, Gold, Silver | Past Producer | ||
| Luckie Mine | Manganese | Prospect | 1963 | |
| Diatomite Prospect | Diatomite | Unknown | ||
| Duncan Area Diatomite Deposits | Diatomite | Occurrence | Diatomite | |
| Stephens Diatomite | Diatomite | Past Producer | ||
| ADOT Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| ADOT Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Prospect | ||
| Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Prospect |
Storms near this place
7 since 1999Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2022 | Flood | Duncan | $250,000 | Heavy 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 2002 | Flash Flood | Duncan | $100,000 | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Duncan | $40,000 | no account filed |
| August 2014 | Flash Flood | Duncan | $20,000 | Three 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 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Duncan | $5,000 | Severe 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 2004 | Flash Flood | Duncan | - | 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 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Duncan | - | Trees blown over |
Newspapers printed here
489 digitised pages1 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.
| Newspaper | Published |
|---|---|
| Duncan Arizonian | 1908 to 1915 |
What the paper printed
11,286 wordsFront 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.
| Issue | Paper | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1911-05-24 | Duncan Arizonian | 3,192 words |
| 1911-07-19 | Duncan Arizonian | 3,136 words |
| 1911-09-20 | Duncan Arizonian | 2,551 words |
| 1911-11-15 | Duncan Arizonian | 2,407 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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fox | 2.3 miles | 13 | |
| Franklin | 3.3 miles | 14 | |
| Sheldon | 7.4 miles | 12 | |
| Apache Grove | 11.2 miles | 12 | |
| York | 13.0 miles | 12 | |
| Three Way | 17.0 miles | 12 | |
| Guthrie | 17.4 miles | 12 | |
| Aragon Place | 21.9 miles | 12 |
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 Duncan | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q985303 | The 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.





