The vicinity of the town had been inhabited in the ancient ages. There is a big aqueduct as well as cisterns, rock tanks for olive oil and the ruins of a fort against pirates constructed during
Roman Empire. (
Kanlıdivane, the ancient religious center is a few kilometers north of Kumkuyu.) But modern settlement began only after the 1950s. The residents of Kumkuyu are the members of a former nomadic
Turkmen (Oghuz Turk) tribe named
Tırtar. In 1989 Kumkuyu was declared a township. ==Economy==