The area where Oakwood currently is built was historically inhabited by the
Kickapoo,
Potawatomi,
Pienkeshaw, all tribes of indigenous peoples; the indigenous peoples discovered the salts mines which would later become the start of the town's economy. The first white presence in the area was that of the French, who documented the salty water near the
Vermilion River in 1706. In the early 1800s, fur trappers employed by
John Jacob Astor's
American Fur Company arrived in the area. The indigenous peoples were driven westward into reservations as a result of several treaties over the course of the early 1800s. In October 1819 an army surveyor team of white settlers and
Shawnee hired guides arrived in the region, searching for salt mines. They established wells and salt mining in the area. Due to competition from other mines the mine eventually shut down in the late 1830s/early 1840s. The village of Oakwood is named after Henry Oakwood, an early settler in the area who arrived in 1833. The township of Oakwood was created in 1868 The impetus for the formation of Oakwood Station was the arrival of the
Indianapolis, Bloomington, and Western (IB&W) Railroad, which arrived in 1870 and led to the platting of Oakwood,
Fithian, and
Muncie. The early town suffered multiple hardships, with a fire damaging half of the new buildings in 1871 and smallpox infecting 15 and killing 2 in 1872. By 1880 the population had increased to 99 people. In 1885 two local men started a
field tile factory, supplied by locally dug clay; this factory would enable the tiling of most of the local farmland. A hotel operated on the northwest corner of Scott and Collett Streets from 1892 until around 1920; rooms cost one dollar per day. By 1897 the population was 367 people; the village suffered its second large fire in on September 24, 1897. In June 1901 a telephone exchange was placed in E.M. Snyder's Restaurant by the Danville Telephone Company. Around 1902 the volunteer fire department was founded. In 1903 an
interurban rail line (for passengers) running from Champaign to Danville stopped for passengers in Oakwood for the first time. The bank of Oakwood was established in 1907. The first automobile owned by an Oakwood resident was believed to have been a
Kiblinger purchased by Dr. Hensley in 1908. Electricity officially came to Oakwood on November 30, 1912 (though some businesses may have had it slightly earlier) with a grand ceremony wherein the mayor pushed a button and all of the streets were lit. By 1920 the population was 506, and Oakwood had its own fire engine. Many Oakwood residents served in both WWI and WWII. Sometime during the 1940s the town voted to go
"dry" and prohibit the sale of any alcoholic beverages. The 1950s brought the retirement of Bill Cronkite, the ice delivery man (as most people now had refrigerators) and the closing of the railway depot (which the village had started around); the 1960s brought
Interstate 74 and a population boom, during which the population rose from 861 people in 1960 to 1,367 people in 1970. In 1987 the town voted to repeal its dry status and allow alcohol sales again. Through the late 1980s the town established a public library district and acquired the old bank building in 1992; the current building was built in 1998. In 1997 the Oakwood United Methodist Church was the site of a
bombing. Major churches in the town's history have included: Oakwood United Methodist Church (Methodist organizing in the area started in the 1830s; the current building was built in 1884); Oakwood Christian Church, (gathering started in the 1880s and the building was finished in 1892); Oakwood Church of the Nazarene (meetings started in 1934 and the building was completed in 1938); and the Oakwood Evangelical Methodist Church (founded in 1968 after splitting from the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and the building was finished in 1970). ==Geography==