Okaw

Okaw is another name for the Kaskaskia River, which rises in the prairies of central Illinois and winds southwest to the Mississippi. The river takes its more widely known name from the Kaskaskia, one of the Illinois peoples. In 1703 Kaskaskia families and Jesuit missionaries established a settlement near its mouth, where French traders also made their homes. That settlement grew into an important centre of the Illinois country, while the river linked its inhabitants with the prairie lands upstream.