A history of West Point,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of West Point from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The current site of West Point was once the site of Cinquoteck, a Native American village of the local Mattaponi, an Algonquian-speaking tribe affiliated with the Powhatan Confederacy. During the first half of the 17th century, the Confederacy and the English colonists who established their first permanent settlement at Jamestown in 1607 were frequently in conflict. By mid-century, the Natives had been largely overcome, including the area of Cinquoteck, by the ever-expanding Colony of Virginia.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish West Point’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewCity Point, Cooking, 1861: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from West Point
See all 5 →West Point, decade by decade
1990s
1 historic place in West Point
West Point has 1 listing on the National Register, and they protect 254 historic buildings, because West Point Historic District alone counts 254.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as City Point, Cooking (1861) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom the Library of Congress (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.