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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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

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What changes

Between Box Elder, Edgemont, Sturgis, Newell

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

Region: Box ElderRapid City and the Ellsworth corridorEdgemontCentral and Southern HillsSturgisNorthern Hills and I-90NewellNorthern Hills and I-90
County: Box ElderPennington CountyEdgemontFall River CountySturgisMeade CountyNewellButte County
Jurisdiction: Box ElderCity of Box ElderEdgemontIncorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.SturgisNot recorded townwide in this guide. The address decides whether it is city or county ground.NewellIncorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.
Corridor: Box ElderI-90EdgemontUS 18 and SD 471SturgisI-90NewellUS 212 and SD 79
To downtown Rapid City: Box Elder19 min, 10.9 miEdgemontAbout 100 miles northeastSturgis33 min, 28.9 miNewellAbout 54 miles, roughly 70 minutes
To Ellsworth AFB: Box Elder9 min, 2.3 miEdgemontAbout 110 milesSturgis48 min, 38.2 miNewellAbout 60 miles

Side by side

Box Elder, Edgemont, Sturgis, Newell

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 corridorBox Elder	Central and Southern HillsEdgemont	Northern Hills and I-90Sturgis	Northern Hills and I-90Newell
Where it sits
Regiondiffers	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor	Central and Southern Hills	Northern Hills and I-90	Northern Hills and I-90
Countydiffers	Pennington County	Fall River County	Meade County	Butte County
JurisdictiondiffersCity versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.	City of Box Elder	Incorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The address decides whether it is city or county ground.	Incorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.
Corridordiffers	I-90	US 18 and SD 471	I-90	US 212 and SD 79
To downtown Rapid Citydiffers	19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 100 miles northeastDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	33 min, 28.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
To Ellsworth AFBdiffers	9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 110 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	48 min, 38.2 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 60 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Winter drivingdiffers	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.	Cold semi-arid country with a recorded low of 40 below. US 18 is the lifeline and it is a long way to anywhere in a storm.	I-90 is state maintained and the city clears its own streets. The county roads out past the edges clear later.	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.
Housing and lots
Typical pricediffers	$340k to $400kMedian sold $367,000. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 235 closed sales.	About $155,000 average sold, 13 sales over 24 monthsAverage sold $155,285. Black Hills MLS, single family, 24 months through August 2026, as of August 2026. 13 closed sales.	$300k to $450kMedian sold $365,000. Mount Rushmore Area MLS, all residential, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 97 closed sales.	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.
Housing agediffers	Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement	An 1890 railroad town, so mostly older stock, with about a quarter of units vacant at the 2020 count.	Older near the core, newer on the edges	A 1910 townsite, so genuinely old in-town stock with newer building scattered around it.
New constructiondiffers	Active, with subdivisions still building	None underway	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Acreagediffers	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.	Acreage parcels are common here	Acreage becomes more common outside the city core, including areas east of Sturgis and along the surrounding canyon and prairie corridors.	Acreage parcels are common here
Typical lotdiffers	Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats	Town lots inside the limits, ranch scale outside them.	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot dimensions.	Small townsite lots, then irrigated project acreage, then rangeland, in that order as you drive out.
Covenants and HOAdiffersCovenants are recorded per plat. The title commitment lists what binds the parcel.	Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.	Few plats here carry recorded covenants	Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.	Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Utilities and rules
Utility patterndiffers	City water and sewer inside the limits	City water and sewer inside the limits	Not recorded townwide in this guide. Verify water and sewer service for the address.	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
Waterdiffers	City of Box Elder municipal	City of Edgemont municipal water. Rural parcels are on private wells.	Not recorded townwide in this guide. Verify the provider for the address.	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.
Sewerdiffers	City of Box Elder municipal	City sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.	Not recorded townwide in this guide. Verify the service for the address.	Municipal sewer inside the limits, billed monthly alongside water. Rural parcels are on private septic.
Short term rentalsdiffers	A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.	Edgemont is not a tourism town. Short-term rental demand here is work crews, hunting season and Rally traffic passing through, not visitors staying to see something.	No short term rental licensing ordinance. What the city does regulate is residential camping during the Rally.	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.
Schools
School districtdiffers	Douglas School District 51-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Edgemont School District 23-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Meade School District 46-1Assignment 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.
Daily errands
Groceriesdiffers	Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.	Small-town grocery and convenience in Edgemont, with Hot Springs about 35 miles east for more.	Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.	A grocery store and a hardware store in town, with Belle Fourche about 25 miles for anything larger.
Healthcarediffers	Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.	No hospital in town. Fall River Health Services in Hot Springs is a 25 bed critical access hospital with a 24 hour emergency department.	Monument Health Sturgis Hospital and clinic are in town.	No hospital or clinic in Newell. Sturgis is about 26 miles, Spearfish about 37, and Monument Health has a clinic in Belle Fourche.
Recreationdiffers	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.	The hundred-year-old city park, the campground, the Elk Mountains and open country in every direction.	Bear Butte State Park, Fort Meade Recreation Area and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum, with the northern hills toward Spearfish and Deadwood close.	A nine-hole golf course, the Newell Museum, the Belle Fourche Reservoir north of town, and hunting in every direction.
Mapped subdivisions
Outlines on filediffers	16 mapped outlines, 3 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.	9 mapped outlines, 8 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.
The trade
Housing and patterndiffers	A young city building its first downtown at Liberty Plaza on 110 acres, with roughly 800 residential units planned.	A working BNSF crew-change town founded in 1890, at the far southern edge of the Hills below the Elk Mountains.	A full Main Street town with its own grocery, hospital and high school, and Bear Butte on the horizon.	A federal reclamation townsite from 1910 at the center of a 57,000 acre irrigation project, with a sale barn and its own school.
What you gaindiffers	The Ellsworth main gate is in town, 9 minutes from most addresses, on city water and sewer, with the region's newest housing pipeline.	More town per dollar than anywhere else in the region, with its own school district and city utilities.	A town that stands on its own, grocery, hospital and high school inside it, at a price per square foot below Rapid City.	A complete small town with its own K through 12 school and irrigated ground around it, at prices the Hills corridor cannot touch.
What you give updiffers	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.	A hundred miles from Rapid City, 35 from a hospital, with two unresolved questions hanging over the local economy.	Half an hour of interstate each way to Rapid City, and for the first two weeks of August the Rally is your town.	Seventy minutes to Rapid City, 26 miles to a hospital, and an irrigation district assessment that attaches to the land as a lien.

Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBox Elder
Central and Southern HillsEdgemont
Northern Hills and I-90Sturgis
Northern Hills and I-90Newell

Where it sits

Regiondiffers

Box Elder: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Edgemont: Central and Southern Hills
Sturgis: Northern Hills and I-90
Newell: Northern Hills and I-90

Countydiffers

Box Elder: Pennington County
Edgemont: Fall River County
Sturgis: Meade County
Newell: Butte County

Jurisdictiondiffers

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

Box Elder: City of Box Elder
Edgemont: Incorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.
Sturgis: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The address decides whether it is city or county ground.
Newell: Incorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.

Corridordiffers

Box Elder: I-90
Edgemont: US 18 and SD 471
Sturgis: I-90
Newell: US 212 and SD 79

To downtown Rapid Citydiffers

Box Elder: 19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Edgemont: About 100 miles northeastDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Sturgis: 33 min, 28.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Newell: About 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.

To Ellsworth AFBdiffers

Box Elder: 9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Edgemont: About 110 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Sturgis: 48 min, 38.2 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Newell: About 60 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.

Winter drivingdiffers

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.
Edgemont: Cold semi-arid country with a recorded low of 40 below. US 18 is the lifeline and it is a long way to anywhere in a storm.
Sturgis: I-90 is state maintained and the city clears its own streets. The county roads out past the edges clear later.
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.

Housing and lots

Typical pricediffers

Box Elder: $340k to $400kMedian sold $367,000. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 235 closed sales.
Edgemont: About $155,000 average sold, 13 sales over 24 monthsAverage sold $155,285. Black Hills MLS, single family, 24 months through August 2026, as of August 2026. 13 closed sales.
Sturgis: $300k to $450kMedian sold $365,000. Mount Rushmore Area MLS, all residential, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 97 closed sales.
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.

Housing agediffers

Box Elder: Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement
Edgemont: An 1890 railroad town, so mostly older stock, with about a quarter of units vacant at the 2020 count.
Sturgis: Older near the core, newer on the edges
Newell: A 1910 townsite, so genuinely old in-town stock with newer building scattered around it.

New constructiondiffers

Box Elder: Active, with subdivisions still building
Edgemont: None underway
Sturgis: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Newell: Limited, mostly infill and small projects

Acreagediffers

Box Elder: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.
Edgemont: Acreage parcels are common here
Sturgis: Acreage becomes more common outside the city core, including areas east of Sturgis and along the surrounding canyon and prairie corridors.
Newell: Acreage parcels are common here

Typical lotdiffers

Box Elder: Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats
Edgemont: Town lots inside the limits, ranch scale outside them.
Sturgis: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot dimensions.
Newell: Small townsite lots, then irrigated project acreage, then rangeland, in that order as you drive out.

Covenants and HOAdiffers

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

Box Elder: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.
Edgemont: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Sturgis: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.
Newell: Few plats here carry recorded covenants

Utilities and rules

Utility patterndiffers

Box Elder: City water and sewer inside the limits
Edgemont: City water and sewer inside the limits
Sturgis: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Verify water and sewer service for the address.
Newell: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it

Waterdiffers

Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal
Edgemont: City of Edgemont municipal water. Rural parcels are on private wells.
Sturgis: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Verify the provider for the address.
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.

Sewerdiffers

Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal
Edgemont: City sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.
Sturgis: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Verify the service for the address.
Newell: Municipal sewer inside the limits, billed monthly alongside water. Rural parcels are on private septic.

Short term rentalsdiffers

Box Elder: A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.
Edgemont: Edgemont is not a tourism town. Short-term rental demand here is work crews, hunting season and Rally traffic passing through, not visitors staying to see something.
Sturgis: No short term rental licensing ordinance. What the city does regulate is residential camping during the Rally.
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.

Schools

School districtdiffers

Box Elder: Douglas School District 51-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Edgemont: Edgemont School District 23-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Sturgis: Meade School District 46-1Assignment 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.

Daily errands

Groceriesdiffers

Box Elder: Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.
Edgemont: Small-town grocery and convenience in Edgemont, with Hot Springs about 35 miles east for more.
Sturgis: Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.
Newell: A grocery store and a hardware store in town, with Belle Fourche about 25 miles for anything larger.

Healthcarediffers

Box Elder: Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.
Edgemont: No hospital in town. Fall River Health Services in Hot Springs is a 25 bed critical access hospital with a 24 hour emergency department.
Sturgis: Monument Health Sturgis Hospital and clinic are in town.
Newell: No hospital or clinic in Newell. Sturgis is about 26 miles, Spearfish about 37, and Monument Health has a clinic in Belle Fourche.

Recreationdiffers

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.
Edgemont: The hundred-year-old city park, the campground, the Elk Mountains and open country in every direction.
Sturgis: Bear Butte State Park, Fort Meade Recreation Area and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum, with the northern hills toward Spearfish and Deadwood close.
Newell: A nine-hole golf course, the Newell Museum, the Belle Fourche Reservoir north of town, and hunting in every direction.

Mapped subdivisions

Outlines on filediffers

Box Elder: 16 mapped outlines, 3 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
Edgemont: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Sturgis: 9 mapped outlines, 8 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
Newell: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.

The trade

Housing and patterndiffers

Box Elder: A young city building its first downtown at Liberty Plaza on 110 acres, with roughly 800 residential units planned.
Edgemont: A working BNSF crew-change town founded in 1890, at the far southern edge of the Hills below the Elk Mountains.
Sturgis: A full Main Street town with its own grocery, hospital and high school, and Bear Butte on the horizon.
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.

What you gaindiffers

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.
Edgemont: More town per dollar than anywhere else in the region, with its own school district and city utilities.
Sturgis: A town that stands on its own, grocery, hospital and high school inside it, at a price per square foot below Rapid City.
Newell: A complete small town with its own K through 12 school and irrigated ground around it, at prices the Hills corridor cannot touch.

What you give updiffers

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.
Edgemont: A hundred miles from Rapid City, 35 from a hospital, with two unresolved questions hanging over the local economy.
Sturgis: Half an hour of interstate each way to Rapid City, and for the first two weeks of August the Rally is your town.
Newell: Seventy minutes to Rapid City, 26 miles to a hospital, and an irrigation district assessment that attaches to the land as a lien.

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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