Bluff, a rural town, is on the Capricorn Highway, 150 km west of Rockhampton, and 25 km east of Blackwater.
Originally known as Duckworth Creek, the name was changed in about 1877 when the Great Western railway from Rockhampton was opened. A nearby hill was referred to as Arthur's Bluff. Settlement around Bluff was furthered by coal mining in the early 1900s, and a school was opened in 1907. Until the 1950s Bluff's population was barely over 100, and Pugh's Queensland directory (1924) recorded only two stores, the Bluff Hotel and the Bluff colliery.
After World War II the town's infrastructure was enlarged: a new hall (1946), connection to the electricity grid (1956) and a local library (1962). In the 1960s numerous open-cut coal mines were started in the Blackwater region, with railway links branching from the Great Western line to service them. A railway employees hostel was built at Bluff, and enlarged during the 1970s-80s. With accommodation for single and married employees, the school population consisted mostly of children of railway employees.