West Hill Community

The year of the first grave was a bad one for fire. A Columbus newspaper report of October 23, 1878, reprinted in G. W. Phillips's 1915 history of Platte County, calls the autumn prairie fires a scourge that came every fall but did more damage than usual that season, with deaths among the losses. Along Lookingglass Creek, one of the streams draining Woodville Township, a Mr. Peterson lost 1,000 bushels of wheat and all his outbuildings, Jacob Jacobs's wife was badly injured, and George Mitchener lost everything but his sod house and was himself badly burned.

What the plaque says

West Hill Community This cemetery north of Genoa in Woodville Township is the center of Platte County's West Hill area. Land for the cemetery was first purchased in 1876 from Will Irwin. The first grave was opened in 1878 for Joshua Middleton, victim of a prairie fire. His grave was marked by four pine trees. Nearby are several other sites of historical interest. North of the cemetery was the West Hill post office (established, 1875; discontinued, 1900), named by postmaster Hiram Eley, for West Hill, England. Area residents once gathered here to receive their mail and discuss community affairs. One mile south and one-fourth mile east of the cemetery is the site of the former West Hill Methodist Church, organized in 1877 by the Reverend James Linn. The West Hill Baptist Church, organized in the early 1900s, was formerly located one mile directly west of the cemetery. Three-fourths mile beyond the Baptist church was the District 68 schoolhouse. The West Chicago General Store, built one mile east of the cemetery in the 1900s, once served as the chief grocery supplier for the community. West Hill Cemetery Association Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Genoa U.S. Indian School Museum — 7.3 mi
  The surviving trades building of a federal boarding school that ran from 1884 to 1934 on the Pawnee Nation's last Nebraska land, where at least 86 children died and the cemetery is still lost.

More markers nearby

• St. Edward — 7.7 mi
• Genoa: 1857-1859 — 7.8 mi
• Pawnee — 7.8 mi
• The Zimmerers - Irrigation Innovators — 10 mi