Duncan Falls is named for an early hunter and trapper by the name of Major Duncan,[5] who emigrated from Virginia and settled near a falls on the Muskingum River, approximately nine miles south of present-day Zanesville, in the 1790s.

The settlement of the town, initially known as Duncan's Falls, began with the establishment of a store by James Taylor in 1825.

By the 1840s, the dam and lock system was in place, allowing for steamboat travel, but raising the water level of the river so as to hide the falls.

The mill was purchased in 1922 by the Ohio Power Company, to acquire its water rights on the river.

The road along the east side of the Muskingum River through Duncan Falls was fully paved in 1933, bringing much highway traffic between Zanesville and Marietta through Duncan Falls (this traffic had previously traveled on a paved route further east that passed through Chandlersville and Caldwell).