Historic homes and old towns
Four places where the building predates the road it sits on.
There is not much genuinely old housing stock in this region, which is what makes the little there is worth knowing about. Four places, and each one is a different kind of old. The last two on this list are whole towns rather than districts inside a city, which is its own kind of old.
- 1 / Rapid City
West Boulevard
Original Tudors, houses that sprawl sideways across what would be two lots, and a few that read like an 1800s mansion because that is what they are. On the National Register since 1974. The spread is the widest in the city: mid $200s for a project, $800,000 and up restored.
- 2 / Spearfish
Downtown and the Historic Districts
Four blocks of native sandstone, twenty four buildings with sixteen standing before 1911, and the 1906 Matthews Opera House still booking shows. Tight lots and old bones, which is the trade for the walk.
- 3 / Sturgis
Downtown and Main Street
A county seat downtown on Main and Lazelle, with residential blocks wrapped tight around it. Assessed medians across the Sturgis plats run $161,717 to $433,351, so the plat name tells you more than the town name does.
- 4 / Sturgis
Fort Meade and the East Side
A cavalry post turned federal historic district with a VA medical campus on it, next to a state park. Neither of those will ever be subdivided, which is worth more than it sounds if you are buying acreage.
- 5 / Community guide
Buffalo Gap
The Buffalo Gap Historic Commercial District is on the National Register, covering Main, Walnut and 2nd, with a period of significance from 1885 to 1939. An 1886 bank and land office, Clark's Store from 1890, the 1892 Wilson Hotel, the 1899 church, a 1908 auditorium and a 1910 sandstone bank now serving as City Hall. The Register description is honest that most of the buildings are abandoned, and the streetscape is still that of a turn of the century western town.
- 6 / Community guide
Edgemont
Founded in 1890 with the Burlington line and still a working BNSF crew change point, which is a rarer thing than a preserved facade. The town has its own school district and its own city utilities at the lowest price level in this guide. Read the Edgemont page before you get excited, because the rail yard's future and a uranium project in state permitting are both live questions.
On any house here older than 1930, the order is: radon first, because this whole region is a high radon zone and old basements are where it shows up. Then the roof and the hail history, and ask specifically what the insurance carrier has said about it. Then wiring and plaster, because that is what separates a $200,000 project from a finished house. And on West Boulevard specifically, read what the historic district designation requires before you plan a renovation around it, because somebody else has a say in your windows and your siding.
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Last updated August 2026
This page is general information, not legal, tax, lending or financial advice. Facts and figures are cited from public sources as of August 2026 and change over time. Henry Roy is a licensed real estate professional with Ascend Realty in South Dakota. Equal Housing Opportunity.