Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in West Point, NE

West Point is a city on the eastern bank of the Elkhorn River in northeastern Nebraska and the county seat of Cuming County.

West Point was founded in the spring of 1857 by Omaha businessmen of the Nebraska Settlement Association; the Bruner brothers — Uriah, John, and Andrew — picked the townsite on a bend of the river.

The settlement was first called New Philadelphia, but the name was soon changed to West Point because it was the westernmost outpost of settlement along the Elkhorn Valley.

West Point became the Cuming County seat on October 12, 1858, after an election against the rival town of DeWitt in which only 19 votes were cast — West Point won with 12.

In the spring of 1859, some 4,000 Pawnee on a hunting excursion burned homesteads and killed livestock in the valley during the so-called Pawnee War, which ended near Battle Creek without a battle.

The railroad reached West Point in 1870 and the town boomed past 700 people; rail service ended in 1982 after Elkhorn River flooding damaged the track, and the rails were removed in 1988.

The 2020 census counted 3,500 people in West Point living in 1,456 households, with 1,642 housing units in the city.

West Point is the birthplace of Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2024.

West Point was also the hometown of Karl H. Timmermann, the U.S. Army lieutenant who led the first American troops across the Rhine River at the Remagen bridge in March 1945.

Hispanic or Latino residents made up 24.1 percent of West Point's population in the 2020 census, reflecting the workforce of the area's meatpacking and agricultural industries.