Relocation

Compare Black Hills Communities

25 towns and unincorporated communities. Pick two to four and the full table appears underneath. Commutes are driving times to the Ellsworth main gate and downtown Rapid City. Median sold prices, where we have them, come from the MLS over the trailing twelve months with the source, window and sale count printed under each figure. Typical price bands are practical search ranges, not medians, and are labelled separately.

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1 of 25 communities

Under $400k Close to Ellsworth Close to Rapid City Short commute New construction available Acreage available City water and sewer Smaller market More rural Established housing Newer housing Clear filters Clear everything

Price filters only consider communities with a published trailing twelve month median, so towns without one do not appear in a price filter.

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The five facts that decide a shortlist

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Selected, 4 of 4

Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor

Everything within about twenty five minutes of downtown Rapid City or the Ellsworth main gate, where most of the newer inventory, the shortest commutes and the jurisdiction questions about city versus county service are.

Rapid City
Typical price
$300k to $450kMedian sold $349,950. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 706 closed sales.
To Ellsworth AFB
24 min, 13.8 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
To downtown Rapid City
5 min, 1.5 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Utility pattern
City water and sewer inside the limits
School district
Rapid City Area Schools 51-4Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
4 is the most that fits. Drop one first.Guide

What changes

Between Black Hawk, Keystone, Newell, Box Elder

The rows below are the ones where these do not read the same. Ordered as the table runs, not by importance.

Region: Black HawkRapid City and the Ellsworth corridorKeystoneCentral and Southern HillsNewellNorthern Hills and I-90Box ElderRapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
County: Black HawkMeade CountyKeystonePennington CountyNewellButte CountyBox ElderPennington County
Jurisdiction: Black HawkUnincorporated Meade CountyKeystoneIncorporated town of Keystone, with unincorporated Pennington County on the surrounding hillsides.NewellIncorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.Box ElderCity of Box Elder
Corridor: Black HawkI-90KeystoneUS 16ANewellUS 212 and SD 79Box ElderI-90
To downtown Rapid City: Black HawkAbout 12 to 15 minutesKeystoneAbout 25 minutes northeastNewellAbout 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesBox Elder19 min, 10.9 mi
To Ellsworth AFB: Black HawkAbout 30 minutes, the same I-90 run as Summerset just northKeystoneAbout 40 minutesNewellAbout 60 milesBox Elder9 min, 2.3 mi

Side by side

Black Hawk, Keystone, Newell, Box Elder

Rows marked as differing are the ones where these do not read alike. Rows without the mark sit on a quiet background because they say the same thing in every column.

The selected Black Hills communities compared on location, housing, utilities, schools, daily errands, mapped subdivisions and the trade each one asks for
Attribute	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBlack Hawk	Central and Southern HillsKeystone	Northern Hills and I-90Newell	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBox Elder
Where it sits
Regiondiffers	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor	Central and Southern Hills	Northern Hills and I-90	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Countydiffers	Meade County	Pennington County	Butte County	Pennington County
JurisdictiondiffersCity versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.	Unincorporated Meade County	Incorporated town of Keystone, with unincorporated Pennington County on the surrounding hillsides.	Incorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.	City of Box Elder
Corridordiffers	I-90	US 16A	US 212 and SD 79	I-90
To downtown Rapid Citydiffers	About 12 to 15 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 25 minutes northeastDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
To Ellsworth AFBdiffers	About 30 minutes, the same I-90 run as Summerset just northDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 40 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 60 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Winter drivingdiffers	The road out front may be maintained publicly or by the neighborhood, so ask who plows before you buy.	Black Hills elevation on canyon roads, and a town that empties out for the season. Iron Mountain Road and the scenic routes are not winter commuting roads.	US 212 and SD 79 are state maintained, and the state rebuilt the Nisland to Newell stretch and the south junction in 2025. Off the highway it is open country and wind moves snow.	I-90 is state maintained and the city clears the newer plats. Box Elder publishes no plow priority map, so ask a neighbor how the street clears after a real storm.
Housing and lots
Typical pricediffers	Unincorporated, so closings report under Rapid City and Meade County rather than a Black Hawk median. Lot size and outbuildings move the price more than the street does.	About $618,000 average sold, but only 9 sales over 24 monthsAverage sold $618,449. Black Hills MLS, single family, 24 months through August 2026, as of August 2026. 9 closed sales, small sample.	No figure published. Newell is Mount Rushmore Area MLS territory and the current feed covers only the Black Hills MLS, so any count from that feed is a floor rather than this town's price level.	$340k to $400kMedian sold $367,000. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 235 closed sales.
Housing agediffers	Mixed street to street, sometimes neighbor to neighbor	An 1883 mining town, so genuinely old stock alongside newer builds and cabins.	A 1910 townsite, so genuinely old in-town stock with newer building scattered around it.	Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement
New constructiondiffers	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Active, with subdivisions still building
Acreagediffers	Larger lots and acre properties are part of the Black Hawk market, including properties with room for shops and outbuildings.	Some acreage, mostly platted town lots	Acreage parcels are common here	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.
Typical lotdiffers	Bigger lots, with shop space and outbuildings normal	Small and steep in town, larger on the surrounding hillsides outside the limits.	Small townsite lots, then irrigated project acreage, then rangeland, in that order as you drive out.	Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats
Covenants and HOAdiffersCovenants are recorded per plat. The title commitment lists what binds the parcel.	Recorded covenants on some plats, none on othersRecorded covenants vary by subdivision and should be checked for the specific property.	Few plats here carry recorded covenants	Few plats here carry recorded covenants	Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.
Utilities and rules
Utility patterndiffers	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it	City water and sewer inside the limits
Waterdiffers	Black Hawk Water User District	Town of Keystone municipal water inside the limits, drawn from town wells, with no violations on its current record. Parcels outside the town limits are on private wells.	Town of Newell municipal water inside the limits, from groundwater, serving about 378 connections. Rural properties are on the Butte-Meade Sanitary Water District or on private wells. Irrigation water from the Belle Fourche Irrigation District is an entirely separate thing from domestic water.	City of Box Elder municipal
Sewerdiffers	Black Hawk Sanitary District serves roughly 200 homes and businesses; properties outside the district are on private septic	Confirm with the town before you rely on it. The town operates public works, but I have not been able to verify from the public record whether it runs a collection system or which parcels it reaches. Outside the limits, expect private septic.	Municipal sewer inside the limits, billed monthly alongside water. Rural parcels are on private septic.	City of Box Elder municipal
Short term rentalsdiffers	No municipal short term rental ordinance, because there is no municipality. State licensing still applies, and the subdivision covenant usually decides.	A 2 percent municipal lodging tax applies to transient stays. Whether a separate short term rental ordinance exists is not clear from the public record, so confirm with the town in writing.	Newell is an agricultural town rather than a tourism town. Short-term rental demand here is hunting season, Rally week and ag events, not year-round visitors.	A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.
Schools
School districtdiffers	Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 for most addressesAssignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Hill City School District 51-2Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Newell School District 09-2Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Douglas School District 51-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Daily errands
Groceriesdiffers	No full-service grocery store is in Black Hawk. Most larger grocery trips go into Rapid City.	Nothing full service in town. Hill City is the closest small grocery and Rapid City is the real shopping, about 25 minutes northeast.	A grocery store and a hardware store in town, with Belle Fourche about 25 miles for anything larger.	Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.
Healthcarediffers	Monument Health Rapid City Hospital	No clinic in town. Monument Health Custer Hospital has a 24 hour emergency department, and Rapid City has the larger hospital.	No hospital or clinic in Newell. Sturgis is about 26 miles, Spearfish about 37, and Monument Health has a clinic in Belle Fourche.	Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.
Recreationdiffers	Piedmont and the Stagebarn area are just north, with the central hills close enough for a half day.	Mount Rushmore is past the town boundary, the 1880 Train runs from the Winter Street depot, and Custer State Park and the Norbeck Scenic Byway are close.	A nine-hole golf course, the Newell Museum, the Belle Fourche Reservoir north of town, and hunting in every direction.	The Liberty Center, the city park and ballfield network, and the South Dakota Air and Space Museum are the in-town recreation. The Badlands are a day trip, not your neighborhood park.
Mapped subdivisions
Outlines on filediffers	12 mapped outlines, 5 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.	No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.	No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.	16 mapped outlines, 3 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
The trade
Housing and patterndiffers	Unincorporated foothills pockets where lot size, home age and outbuildings change from one parcel to the next.	An 1883 mining camp turned tourism town at the gateway to Mount Rushmore, 240 residents and millions of visitors.	A federal reclamation townsite from 1910 at the center of a 57,000 acre irrigation project, with a sale barn and its own school.	A young city building its first downtown at Liberty Plaza on 110 acres, with roughly 800 residential units planned.
What you gaindiffers	Bigger lots, room for a shop, and about 12 to 15 minutes to downtown Rapid City, without a city hall setting the local rules.	Nightly rental demand runs about as high as anywhere in the Black Hills, if the rules and the covenants check out for the specific property.	A complete small town with its own K through 12 school and irrigated ground around it, at prices the Hills corridor cannot touch.	The Ellsworth main gate is in town, 9 minutes from most addresses, on city water and sewer, with the region's newest housing pipeline.
What you give updiffers	There is no city hall, so the subdivision covenant decides what you can build or rent, and water, sewer and road maintenance all change parcel to parcel.	A seasonal town with no school, no grocery and no clinic, and a housing stock where half the doors are dark in winter.	Seventy minutes to Rapid City, 26 miles to a hospital, and an irrigation district assessment that attaches to the land as a lien.	Comparable sales run thin inside brand new subdivisions and builder incentives move the effective price without moving the list price. I-90 fills at shift change, and the flight line is close enough that you hear it.

Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBlack Hawk
Central and Southern HillsKeystone
Northern Hills and I-90Newell
Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBox Elder

Where it sits

Regiondiffers

Black Hawk: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Keystone: Central and Southern Hills
Newell: Northern Hills and I-90
Box Elder: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor

Countydiffers

Black Hawk: Meade County
Keystone: Pennington County
Newell: Butte County
Box Elder: Pennington County

Jurisdictiondiffers

City versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.

Black Hawk: Unincorporated Meade County
Keystone: Incorporated town of Keystone, with unincorporated Pennington County on the surrounding hillsides.
Newell: Incorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.
Box Elder: City of Box Elder

Corridordiffers

Black Hawk: I-90
Keystone: US 16A
Newell: US 212 and SD 79
Box Elder: I-90

To downtown Rapid Citydiffers

Black Hawk: About 12 to 15 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
Keystone: About 25 minutes northeastDriving time and distance, off peak.
Newell: About 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
Box Elder: 19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.

To Ellsworth AFBdiffers

Black Hawk: About 30 minutes, the same I-90 run as Summerset just northDriving time and distance, off peak.
Keystone: About 40 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
Newell: About 60 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Box Elder: 9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.

Winter drivingdiffers

Black Hawk: The road out front may be maintained publicly or by the neighborhood, so ask who plows before you buy.
Keystone: Black Hills elevation on canyon roads, and a town that empties out for the season. Iron Mountain Road and the scenic routes are not winter commuting roads.
Newell: US 212 and SD 79 are state maintained, and the state rebuilt the Nisland to Newell stretch and the south junction in 2025. Off the highway it is open country and wind moves snow.
Box Elder: I-90 is state maintained and the city clears the newer plats. Box Elder publishes no plow priority map, so ask a neighbor how the street clears after a real storm.

Housing and lots

Typical pricediffers

Black Hawk: Unincorporated, so closings report under Rapid City and Meade County rather than a Black Hawk median. Lot size and outbuildings move the price more than the street does.
Keystone: About $618,000 average sold, but only 9 sales over 24 monthsAverage sold $618,449. Black Hills MLS, single family, 24 months through August 2026, as of August 2026. 9 closed sales, small sample.
Newell: No figure published. Newell is Mount Rushmore Area MLS territory and the current feed covers only the Black Hills MLS, so any count from that feed is a floor rather than this town's price level.
Box Elder: $340k to $400kMedian sold $367,000. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 235 closed sales.

Housing agediffers

Black Hawk: Mixed street to street, sometimes neighbor to neighbor
Keystone: An 1883 mining town, so genuinely old stock alongside newer builds and cabins.
Newell: A 1910 townsite, so genuinely old in-town stock with newer building scattered around it.
Box Elder: Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement

New constructiondiffers

Black Hawk: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Keystone: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Newell: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Box Elder: Active, with subdivisions still building

Acreagediffers

Black Hawk: Larger lots and acre properties are part of the Black Hawk market, including properties with room for shops and outbuildings.
Keystone: Some acreage, mostly platted town lots
Newell: Acreage parcels are common here
Box Elder: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.

Typical lotdiffers

Black Hawk: Bigger lots, with shop space and outbuildings normal
Keystone: Small and steep in town, larger on the surrounding hillsides outside the limits.
Newell: Small townsite lots, then irrigated project acreage, then rangeland, in that order as you drive out.
Box Elder: Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats

Covenants and HOAdiffers

Covenants are recorded per plat. The title commitment lists what binds the parcel.

Black Hawk: Recorded covenants on some plats, none on othersRecorded covenants vary by subdivision and should be checked for the specific property.
Keystone: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Newell: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Box Elder: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.

Utilities and rules

Utility patterndiffers

Black Hawk: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
Keystone: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
Newell: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
Box Elder: City water and sewer inside the limits

Waterdiffers

Black Hawk: Black Hawk Water User District
Keystone: Town of Keystone municipal water inside the limits, drawn from town wells, with no violations on its current record. Parcels outside the town limits are on private wells.
Newell: Town of Newell municipal water inside the limits, from groundwater, serving about 378 connections. Rural properties are on the Butte-Meade Sanitary Water District or on private wells. Irrigation water from the Belle Fourche Irrigation District is an entirely separate thing from domestic water.
Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal

Sewerdiffers

Black Hawk: Black Hawk Sanitary District serves roughly 200 homes and businesses; properties outside the district are on private septic
Keystone: Confirm with the town before you rely on it. The town operates public works, but I have not been able to verify from the public record whether it runs a collection system or which parcels it reaches. Outside the limits, expect private septic.
Newell: Municipal sewer inside the limits, billed monthly alongside water. Rural parcels are on private septic.
Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal

Short term rentalsdiffers

Black Hawk: No municipal short term rental ordinance, because there is no municipality. State licensing still applies, and the subdivision covenant usually decides.
Keystone: A 2 percent municipal lodging tax applies to transient stays. Whether a separate short term rental ordinance exists is not clear from the public record, so confirm with the town in writing.
Newell: Newell is an agricultural town rather than a tourism town. Short-term rental demand here is hunting season, Rally week and ag events, not year-round visitors.
Box Elder: A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.

Schools

School districtdiffers

Black Hawk: Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 for most addressesAssignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Keystone: Hill City School District 51-2Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Newell: Newell School District 09-2Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Box Elder: Douglas School District 51-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.

Daily errands

Groceriesdiffers

Black Hawk: No full-service grocery store is in Black Hawk. Most larger grocery trips go into Rapid City.
Keystone: Nothing full service in town. Hill City is the closest small grocery and Rapid City is the real shopping, about 25 minutes northeast.
Newell: A grocery store and a hardware store in town, with Belle Fourche about 25 miles for anything larger.
Box Elder: Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.

Healthcarediffers

Black Hawk: Monument Health Rapid City Hospital
Keystone: No clinic in town. Monument Health Custer Hospital has a 24 hour emergency department, and Rapid City has the larger hospital.
Newell: No hospital or clinic in Newell. Sturgis is about 26 miles, Spearfish about 37, and Monument Health has a clinic in Belle Fourche.
Box Elder: Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.

Recreationdiffers

Black Hawk: Piedmont and the Stagebarn area are just north, with the central hills close enough for a half day.
Keystone: Mount Rushmore is past the town boundary, the 1880 Train runs from the Winter Street depot, and Custer State Park and the Norbeck Scenic Byway are close.
Newell: A nine-hole golf course, the Newell Museum, the Belle Fourche Reservoir north of town, and hunting in every direction.
Box Elder: The Liberty Center, the city park and ballfield network, and the South Dakota Air and Space Museum are the in-town recreation. The Badlands are a day trip, not your neighborhood park.

Mapped subdivisions

Outlines on filediffers

Black Hawk: 12 mapped outlines, 5 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
Keystone: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Newell: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Box Elder: 16 mapped outlines, 3 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.

The trade

Housing and patterndiffers

Black Hawk: Unincorporated foothills pockets where lot size, home age and outbuildings change from one parcel to the next.
Keystone: An 1883 mining camp turned tourism town at the gateway to Mount Rushmore, 240 residents and millions of visitors.
Newell: A federal reclamation townsite from 1910 at the center of a 57,000 acre irrigation project, with a sale barn and its own school.
Box Elder: A young city building its first downtown at Liberty Plaza on 110 acres, with roughly 800 residential units planned.

What you gaindiffers

Black Hawk: Bigger lots, room for a shop, and about 12 to 15 minutes to downtown Rapid City, without a city hall setting the local rules.
Keystone: Nightly rental demand runs about as high as anywhere in the Black Hills, if the rules and the covenants check out for the specific property.
Newell: A complete small town with its own K through 12 school and irrigated ground around it, at prices the Hills corridor cannot touch.
Box Elder: The Ellsworth main gate is in town, 9 minutes from most addresses, on city water and sewer, with the region's newest housing pipeline.

What you give updiffers

Black Hawk: There is no city hall, so the subdivision covenant decides what you can build or rent, and water, sewer and road maintenance all change parcel to parcel.
Keystone: A seasonal town with no school, no grocery and no clinic, and a housing stock where half the doors are dark in winter.
Newell: Seventy minutes to Rapid City, 26 miles to a hospital, and an irrigation district assessment that attaches to the land as a lien.
Box Elder: Comparable sales run thin inside brand new subdivisions and builder incentives move the effective price without moving the list price. I-90 fills at shift change, and the flight line is close enough that you hear it.

Where this comes from

Commute figures are driving times off peak, from the community guide each card links to. Median sold prices come from the MLS, and each figure carries its own source, window and closing count, because Sturgis, Spearfish and the northern hills report through a different MLS than Rapid City. Under five closings there is no median, and the price row says so. Five to nine closings carries a small sample note. School districts follow the official boundary for the address, and the district office is the only place to confirm an assignment. Short term rental lines are summaries. Read the guide and the current ordinance before you count on rental income.

The filters use these definitions: under $400k is the MLS sold figure for the town, a median where one is published and otherwise the average sold, comes in under $400,000; close to ellsworth is 25 minutes or less to the Ellsworth main gate; close to rapid city is 20 minutes or less to downtown Rapid City; short commute is 15 minutes or less to either downtown Rapid City or the Ellsworth gate; new construction available is the guide establishes active or limited new construction; acreage available is acreage is common or present in the guide; city water and sewer is city water and sewer across the community; smaller market is fewer than 100 closed single family sales in the trailing twelve months; more rural is acreage is common, or water and sewer are not municipal throughout; established housing is the guide classifies the housing stock as established, meaning largely pre 2000; newer housing is the guide classifies a meaningful share of the housing stock as 2000s or later.

Every row here is a townwide summary and a single parcel can read differently. Buyer due diligence should include verifying water and sewer service, school assignment, recorded covenants and HOA obligations, rental rules, legal access, insurance availability and which jurisdiction inspects and permits the work, for the exact address. Confirm with the city or county, the utility or district, the school district office, the title company and your insurer as applicable.

Last updated August 2026

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ComparingBlack Hawk, Keystone, Newell, Box Elder

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