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Paducah was first settled as "Pekin" around 1821 by European Americans James and William Pore. The town was laid out by explorer William Clark in 1827 and renamed Paducah. Although local lore long connected this to an eponymous Chickasaw chief "Paduke" and his tribe of "Paducahs", authorities on the Chickasaw have since said that there was never any chief or tribe of that name, or anything like it, nor any words like them in the Chickasaw language. Instead, it is thought that Clark named the town for the Comanche people, who were known by the settlers as the Padoucas, from a Spanish rendering of the Kaw Pádoka. or Omaha Pádoⁿka.) Paducah was formally established as a town in 1830 and incorporated as a city by the state legislature in 1838.