West Point is a city in and the county seat of Cuming County, Nebraska, United States.[5] The population was 3,364 at the 2010 census.
West Point was first founded in the spring of 1857, when Omaha businessmen formed the Nebraska Settlement Association in order to find suitable townsites in the Elkhorn Valley. Uriah, John, and Andrew Bruner (three brothers originally from Pennsylvania), and William Sexauer chose the present location on a bend along a river, which they called New Philadelphia.[6] The name was soon changed to West Point because it was the westernmost outpost along the valley.[7]
West Point became the county seat of Cuming County on October 12, 1858 after winning the election over the community of DeWitt. A total of 19 votes were split between the two towns with West Point obtaining 12 votes. By the spring of 1859, over 4,000 Pawnee natives flooded the Elkhorn Valley during a hunting excursion and, displeased to find white settlers in the valley, burned several homesteads and killed livestock. The so-called Pawnee War ended near Battle Creek without a fight.
Settlement of Counties
Cuming County 1864
1865 saw the arrival of Mrs. Teresa Grewe (then Miss Teresa Klojda,) Mrs. Carl Brockman formally Miss Mary Klojda and Mrs. Labrech Schlect (formally Miss Armada Liskovic) and their families. Therefore, the first four Czech settlers in Cuming County were women. Mrs. Drew is living at date of writing, hale and hearty in the home for old people in West Point where she was interviewed by Mr. Joseph Zajicek, a pioneer and banker of that town, who has furnished the data for the history of this County. She was born in Budejovice, Bohemia in 1844 and with her parents two sisters and two brothers emigrated to Wisconsin, to Manitowoc County in 1852. On May 1st, 1865 she and her sister Mrs. Carl Brockman and Mrs. Labrech Schlect with families left Wisconsin for Nebraska with three ox teams. Miss Klojda, then a young woman of 21, drove the cattle they took along and walked the whole distance from Wisconsin to Cuming County, their destination. They arrived they are about June 30th, at which time West Point consisted of three houses. One was occupied by John D Neligh, one by David Neligh and one was vacant. The following month Miss Klojda married Mr. Grewe and they settled on the homestead 6 miles Southwest of West Point, where she lived until recently. In 1868 Frank Klojda, born in Budejovice, Bohemia, came to Wisconsin in 1852. This pioneer was recognized and truly so as the most prominent Czech of his day in the county. He was known as Cloudy (an Americanized version of his name) and for years a post office named in his honor existed in the county. He was a man of worldly experience, having traveled much since landing in America and speaking English, German and Czech fluently. He was of a fine appearance, refined manners and left the memory of a kindly, charitable and unsparing worker among poor pioneers. He was postmaster of Cloudy for many years and was the first Czech to be elected to the county office, that of assessor, in 1869. In 1875 he moved to Seattle Washington.
Mrs. Mary Brockman, now lives in California but the rest of that little company who came with her are no more. The first colonies settling Cuming County consisted of a group of Germans, who came from Dubuque, Iowa in the spring of 1860. From that year1865, when Mrs. Grewe came, the colony had not received a single additional inhabitant. After that it began to grow and in 1870 was a population of some 200.
This is an excerpt from a NeGenWeb Project
West Point grew slowly at first, but with the coming of the railroad in 1870, it boomed to a population of over 700.
The Chicago & North Western ended railroad service in 1982 after flood damage and declining freight traffic levels resulted in the track being abandoned. Plans were made to revive railroad service from the newly formed Fremont & Elkhorn Valley Railroad, who purchased the abandoned C&NW track. However, the costs were too high to revive railroad service, and the tracks were removed in 1988.[citation needed]
On August 26, 2019, the DHHS announced that the city’s water was unsafe to drink after a year of complaints from citizens of the town. The maximum safe level of manganese for infants had been exceeded by over 700 micrograms per mL
West Point is located at 41°50′23″N 96°42′41″W (41.839635, -96.711406).[9]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.73 square miles (7.07 km2), of which 2.72 square miles (7.04 km2) is land and 0.01 square miles (0.03 km2) is water.[10] West Point lies on the eastern bank of the Elkhorn River.