A history of Paducah,
since 1821
Postcards, papers and photographs of Paducah from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Paducah was first settled as "Pekin" around 1821 by European Americans James and William Pore. The town was laid out by explorer and surveyor William Clark in 1827 and renamed Paducah.
Although local lore long connected this name to an eponymous Chickasaw chief "Paduke" and his band of "Paducahs", authorities on the Chickasaw have since said that there was never any chief or tribe of that name, or anything like it. The Chickasaw language does not have related words. Instead, historians believe that Clark named the town for the Comanche people of the western plains. They were known by regional settlers as the Padoucas, from a Spanish transliteration of the Kaw word Pádoka or the Omaha Pádoⁿka.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Paducah’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old view1940 Census Enumeration District …, 1880: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Paducah, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as 1940 Census Enumeration District Maps - Kentucky - McCracken County - Paducah - ED 73-1 - ED 73-28 (1880) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From Wikimedia Commons (4), the Library of Congress (1) and the National Register (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.