[4] In 1880, the settlement's name was changed to Duncan,[4] owing to the existence of another Jackson in Dakota County.

[6] The new name honored General Wood B. Duncan, a prominent onetime local resident.

[5] In the following year, St. Stanislaus Church was built by the Polish Roman Catholics of the Duncan area.

[10] According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 0.42 square miles (1.09 km2), all land.

In 1964, Tasty-Toppings, Inc. purchased the recipe and rights to Dorothy Lynch and built a production facility in Columbus, Nebraska.

The company later expanded its production capacity with a modern 64,000-square-foot (5,900 m2) plant in Duncan, and is the town's largest employer.

A concrete marker at the southeast corner of 8th Street and Main Avenue indicates the northeastern end of a 2.4-mile (3.9 km) section that has not changed significantly since the 1920s.

This section of road, including the marker and an avenue of hackberry trees through which the old highway passed just south of downtown Duncan, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Lincoln Highway-Duncan West.

[15] The Duncan Ribfest is a two-day summer street festival that usually takes place the last weekend of June.

The members of the Duncan Fire Department have been volunteering their time each year and have raised funds to help purchase new equipment through this event.

Duncan lies on the natural overland route across Nebraska running up the Platte and the Loup valleys, and transportation has always been a major factor in its history.

[4] The village is located on the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad, running into and out of Columbus with 60 freight trains daily.

The highway, which paralleled the Union Pacific tracks through Duncan, was enthusiastically supported by the citizenry.

It ran through central Duncan until 1928, when it was shifted to the south side of the tracks in order to eliminate grade-level crossings between Columbus and Grand Island.