[4] West Point was 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.

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 tracks had been experiencing declining freight traffic volumes.

Revenue railroad service ended in spring of 1982, when flooding from the Elkhorn River damaged sections of the track.

With freight traffic declining and flooding damage, the C&NW filed a request with the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon the line.

Permission was granted a short time later, leaving the tracks with a dismal future.

Those plans were to bring tourists in that got on the train in Fremont & possibly run freight.

[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.