Lucin was founded in the late 19th century, about 10 miles (16 km) north of its current location, to provide a water stop for railroads to replenish their steam locomotives.

[2] For a while, no one lived in Lucin, until 1997 when Ivo Zdarsky, an aviation entrepreneur and manufacturer of the Ivoprop, a plane propeller,[3] bought it and moved there.

[5][2] As of 2016, except for the intermittent (more permanent since 2008[4]) presence of Zdarsky, one of the four property owners and avid solitary explorer, and his IVOPROP Corp research and development activities, Lucin is a ghost town.

As of 2016[update], the most prominent town features were a recent airplane hangar doubling as a residence and a workshop, an adjacent unpaved landing strip, along with several smaller, separate utility buildings (water, fuel, telecommunications, power).

[4] The Lucin area is a popular stop for rockhounds looking for an apple-green, chert-like phosphate mineral variscite, also known as utahlite and lucinite.