Tamaha was one of the earliest port towns and trading centers in the Choctaw Nation, I.T. Choctaws brought from Mississippi up the Arkansas River to Tamaha on steamboats as early as 1831. Tamaha developed as a port and ferry crossing around 1836. A post office was built in 1884 and a jail in 1886. The last steamboat landed there in 1912, 3 mi. east of Stigler, SH 9.