Ducktown

What is the origin of Ducktown in Atlantic City? Long before Atlantic City became the fully developed resort town it is today, there were duck farms along the bay, dating to the 1800s.

In those days, the inlet side of Absecon Island was swampy and inhabited by wild fowl. Thus, all of the ducks. So it was home to a lot of birds and shorebirds. So it was called Ducktown.”

As hotel owners developed Ducktown, they shipped workers in from Sicily. Those workers made their home in the area between Texas and Missouri avenues. The Italian laborers bought up a good deal of the land north of Atlantic Avenue between those streets. The most crowded part of Atlantic City was toward the inlet; that’s where the population was.

In the 1920s and ’30s the Italian men stood out for the way they combed their hair, “back over their heads and behind their heads,” an effect that looked less like a ponytail and more like the ends of duck feathers. The hairstyle found its origins in South Philadelphia, another former Italian area. He said the hairstyle started a false rumor as to the origin of the neighborhood’s name. For the older generations, the Ducktown name still applies.

When you speak to people over 50 that have moved away from Atlantic City, they refer to it as Ducktown.

Popular stops in the Ducktown area include St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church on Mississippi Avenue, Angelo’s Fairmount Tavern on Fairmount Avenue and the White House Sub Shop on Arctic Avenue.