This Ouachita County community is located at the confluence of the Ouachita and the Little Missouri Rivers at a point where Clark, Dallas, and Ouachita Counties converge.  It was also the first permanent white settlement in the county.  Captain Richard Tate, who served with Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, was the first of his family to come into this area on an exploratory expedition after the war ended.  He then returned to his family home to persuade his brothers, Anderson and George, along with several other families to accompany him back to the bluff he found.  An April 4, 1819 this group established their settlement in Ouachita County.  A confirmed bachelor, Richard Tate died in 1850 and was buried in the old Tate's Bluff Cemetery.

Anderson Lake in the county was named for Anderson Tate.  Like his brother, he was buried in the Tate's Bluff Cemetaery after his death in 1836.

Ten years after the first Tate settlement, Richard Tate's nephew, John Tate brought his wife and four sons, Bill, Albert, Jack, and Alfred, to settle at Tate's Bluff.  This party also included John's brother, William Harper Tate and his wife, Lydia, his brother-in-law H. Hayes, and Dousak Gates who married John's sister.  Also, D. Harrison and H. Watkins were in the group, and they had plans to establish a town on the bluff.  But the Tate family had no interest in the idea of a town.  Boats on the river stopped often at the bluff to provide the Tate's with the supplies they needed, and to pick up materials from them.

Never a large settlement, Tate's Bluff is not listed in a historic Business Directory for the State of Arkansas that was published in 1900; however, several other communities in Ouachita County are listed in the directory.