Timeline story
Paducah at the Tennessee mouth
After the 1818 Jackson Purchase opened Chickasaw land west of the Tennessee River, a small landing called Pekin grew at the Ohio–Tennessee confluence.
In 1827 William Clark (of Lewis and Clark, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs) platted a town on that ground and named it Paducah for the Padouca, a people he had known on the plains and believed nearly erased by European expansion—not the later folk legend of a Chickasaw "Chief Paduke."
The town incorporated in 1830 and became McCracken County's seat in 1832, riding steamboat traffic into a river-and-rail hub.
Cite this story
Published . Last revised .
Chicago
Snowden, Shannon. "Paducah at the Tennessee mouth." Kentucky History Drive. Published September 27, 2026. Last revised October 26, 2026. https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/paducah-at-the-tennessee-mouth/.
MLA
Snowden, Shannon. "Paducah at the Tennessee mouth." Kentucky History Drive, published 27 Sept. 2026, last revised 26 Oct. 2026, https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/paducah-at-the-tennessee-mouth/.
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