Near the stroke of midnight on October 11, 1845, a gunshot was fired by a cattle farmer, James Cunningham Jordan (1813–1893) to declare that the area was open for Anglo-European settlement.

His residence, the Jordan House, has been restored and is now home to the West Des Moines Historical Society.

In West Des Moines' early years, the town was a trading and shipping junction.

The speed limit of ten miles (16 km) an hour had existed for all automobiles Valley Junction since 1911.

Before a crowd of 7,000 people, a tire blew, lunging Joe Cooper's car over the rail.

Later while rounding a curb, a wheel of Billy Chandler's Duesenberg failed, cartwheeling the car into the infield and fatally injuring his mechanic, Maurice Keeler.

This baptism by blood left a bad taste in the mouth of the locals, and the track was closed two years later.

Building commenced and by September of the following year, the doors of the new Valley High School were opened at 8th and Hillside.

The replacements were mostly Mexican and African-American laborers brought up from Oklahoma by R. C. Hyde, the master mechanic at the shops.

For their own protection, they lived in boxcars and tiny houses in an area south of Railroad Avenue and west of the main rail yards.

The resulting hardships suffered by the idled workers led the most desperate to choose between breaking the strike or letting their family starve.

[5] By the late 1920s, workers of Valley Junction were suffering from the Depression because the railroads were abandoning track there (completed in 1936), and the Keystone Coal Factory closed due to flooding in the tunnels.

They thought the name "Valley Junction" conveyed the image of an old-fashioned and backward town to prospective employers and residents.

The name of "West Des Moines" would give it the respectability and prestige the town desperately needed.

On January 1, 1938, the name "Valley Junction" was relegated to the past, and the new city of West Des Moines took the first steps to a new identity.

Today the original business district of West Des Moines has been preserved as Historic Valley Junction.

It features many locally owned specialty shops and restaurants as well as a weekly farmers' market.

Though the name was changed, the community's commitment to education was bolstered by funds from the Public Works Administration.

[6] The late 1930s were very good years in the school's athletic teams, producing memorable names: True, Gavin, Swink, and Sherbo.

An overgrown concrete eyesore on Ashworth Road soon became the musical mecca for the surrounding area on June 6, 1939, when Tom Archer opened the Val Air Ballroom.

Patrons of the Val Air could dance under a canopy of stars to the melodious sounds of Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and other big bands.

Unpredictable waters of the Raccoon River and Walnut Creek have often exceeded their banks due to large amounts of rain in the summer and snowmelt in the spring, filling the streets and damaging homes and businesses.

With the influx of students, the school district's ever-expanding borders continually compromised classroom capacity.

West Des Moines expanded into Dallas County during the 1990s and 2000s, once again placing the premier golf courses of the Des Moines Golf and Country Club in its city limits and punctuated by the opening of one of the best golf courses in Iowa at the Glen Oaks Country Club[a] along with the West Glen Town Center and the largest in the state of Iowa, Jordan Creek Town Center and shopping mall in 2004.

Seeing the land to the south of Des Moines as extremely valuable, especially with the completion of a major "South-Belt Freeway" system, the cities of Norwalk and West Des Moines are actively competing for land in the northern part of Warren County.

In 2012, Clegg Park Elementary was renovated and opened as the new Walnut Creek Campus which is the district's alternative high school.

After the Great Flood of 1993, a floodwall was constructed along Walnut Creek (near the boundary with Des Moines) to protect that area.

Other large employers include ADP, Goodrich and Wells Fargo's Card Services and Home Mortgage divisions.

Microsoft maintains several data centers in West Des Moines including, as of September 2023, its most advanced supercomputer because heat from the supercomputer can be vented with outside air when air temperatures are below 29.3 °C (84.7 °F) and thus significantly reduce the amount of water used for cooling.

Parts of Clive, Urbandale, and Windsor Heights are also in the West Des Moines School District.