West Point

I was once told by a resident of the west point area that "everyone knows everyone here and we all have guns." It was meant to be words of comfort from the man I was going to be taking care of his horses for while he was out of town for a few days, since I was concerned about anything happening to his animals or to me while he was away (I.e.- mountain lion or bear). Now that I think about it all these years later, I'm certain they were words of caution.
West Point is a tiny spread out town in Calaveras, bordering the amador/Calaveras county line. It is pretty tucked away in the mountains and doesn't have much to offer. There's a elementary school, one gas station, three eateries, and one grocery store that wants there customers to buy at least $20 worth of stuff in order for you to use your debit card ( its a place that's desperate for business) and lets not forget the local watering hole where "trouble" seems to be the brew of choice. I can't begin to tell you how many bad stories I have heard come from this place. West point has a pretty bad reputation for drugs, crazy hillbillies, and even murders ( technically the notorious serial killers Leonard Lake & Charles Ng in 1985 were located just on the outskirts of west point in Wilseyville, but to get there you have to go through west point).
To me, West point could be a nice place if it just wasn't for the trashy people out there. My cousins friend told us about a guy he knew who was having a drink at the bar in west point when these two drunk Indian guys from the reservation were hitting up on his girlfriend, which led to a fight in which one of the Indians took a knife and slit the guys throat before they both fled. He was lucky to have lived, if it wasn't for his girlfriend stopping the bleeding. Its not just your crazy drunks, as I have already mentioned about being cautioned against the people here, the saying is very true and you would not want to accidentally get lost going down some back road. Heavens forbid, should you end up stumbling across someone's pot farm because they will shoot you (summer of 2015, butte fire, shoot out again looters trying to steal pot farmers crops).
To sum up west point, I would NOT recommend this place to anyone no matter how cheap rent is or houses for sale are. This place reminds me to much of that freaky movie, "hills have eyes" minus the deformities of the locals, although I can't doubt there is probably some inner breeding going on out there.