WAUKEGAN, Ill. (AP) — A federal board has renamed a Lake County creek to remove its longtime name considered offensive to Native Americans.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names approved the change in December that officially renamed Squaw Creek to Manitou Creek.

The Daily Herald reports the three-member Manitou Creek Drainage District navigated the federal bureaucracy to have the name of the 15-mile creek changed. Drainage board president Patrick Duby says more local residents now realize “that the word ‘squaw’ is an ethnic and sexual slur against Native American women.”

The change will be made in the federal Geographic Names Information System, which is the nation’s official geographic names repository.