[3] The area where Oakwood currently is built was historically inhabited by the Kickapoo and Potawatomi, both tribes of indigenous peoples.

The Potawatomi camp was located on the south side of Oakwood, near the modern-day Lake Bluff trailer park.

The indigenous peoples discovered the salts mines which would later become the start of the town’s economy.

In the early 1800s, fur trappers arrived in the area and drove the Kickapoo peoples into Missouri.

The team was composed of Captain Blackman, George Beckwith, Seymour Treat, Peter Allen, and Francis Whitcomb, and set up camp on the north side of Salt Fork Vermilion River on the modern-day southeast corner of Oakwood, where they set up a salt mine boiling off salty water from the ground.