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 Box Elder, Newell, Wall, Summerset

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 corridorNewellNorthern Hills and I-90WallPrairie and BadlandsSummersetRapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
County: Box ElderPennington CountyNewellButte CountyWallPennington CountySummersetMeade County
Jurisdiction: Box ElderCity of Box ElderNewellIncorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.WallIncorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.SummersetCity of Summerset, incorporated July 2005
Corridor: Box ElderI-90NewellUS 212 and SD 79WallI-90 exits 109 and 110SummersetI-90
To downtown Rapid City: Box Elder19 min, 10.9 miNewellAbout 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesWallAbout 50 miles west on I-90Summerset15 min, 10.0 mi
To Ellsworth AFB: Box Elder9 min, 2.3 miNewellAbout 60 milesWallAbout 43 miles westSummerset30 min, 19.2 mi

Side by side

Box Elder, Newell, Wall, Summerset

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	Northern Hills and I-90Newell	Prairie and BadlandsWall	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorSummerset
Where it sits
Regiondiffers	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor	Northern Hills and I-90	Prairie and Badlands	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Countydiffers	Pennington County	Butte County	Pennington County	Meade County
JurisdictiondiffersCity versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.	City of Box Elder	Incorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.	Incorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.	City of Summerset, incorporated July 2005
Corridordiffers	I-90	US 212 and SD 79	I-90 exits 109 and 110	I-90
To downtown Rapid Citydiffers	19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 50 miles west on I-90Distance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	15 min, 10.0 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
To Ellsworth AFBdiffers	9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 60 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	About 43 miles westDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	30 min, 19.2 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
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.	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 the lifeline and it is state maintained, but this is open prairie and I-90 does close in a ground blizzard. Plan for that a few times a winter.	The commute is I-90, so winter driving here is interstate driving rather than a two lane canyon road.
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.	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.	About $270,000 average sold, 19 sales over 24 monthsAverage sold $270,435. Black Hills MLS, single family, 24 months through August 2026, as of August 2026. 19 closed sales.	Builder inventory sets the level here, and the MLS publishes no Summerset median on its own.
Housing agediffers	Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement	A 1910 townsite, so genuinely old in-town stock with newer building scattered around it.	Older stock through town, with a municipal demolition incentive program in place for blighted property.	Mostly 2000s to present
New constructiondiffers	Active, with subdivisions still building	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	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 parcels are common here	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.
Typical lotdiffers	Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats	Small townsite lots, then irrigated project acreage, then rangeland, in that order as you drive out.	Platted town lots, and then it jumps straight to ranch scale.	Wide lots on new streets
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	Few plats here carry recorded covenants	Recorded covenants on some plats, none on others
Utilities and rules
Utility patterndiffers	City water and sewer inside the limits	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it	City water and sewer inside the limits	Sewer collection is provided by the City of Summerset. Water service varies by address and can include Black Hawk Water User District or Diamond D Water in Sun Valley.
Waterdiffers	City of Box Elder municipal	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.	Town of Wall municipal water inside the limits. Rural parcels are on private wells.	Black Hawk Water User District, or Diamond D Water in Sun Valley
Sewerdiffers	City of Box Elder municipal	Municipal sewer inside the limits, billed monthly alongside water. Rural parcels are on private septic.	Town sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.	City of Summerset
Short term rentalsdiffers	A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.	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.	This is genuine seasonal tourism territory at a national park gate. Confirm any town requirement, and note that Wall Drug houses many of its own seasonal workers, which removes demand from the local rental market.	The thinnest rules on this list, which means a rental plan has to be pinned down for the specific address.
Schools
School districtdiffers	Douglas School District 51-1Assignment 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.	Wall School District 51-5Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4, split within the cityAssignment 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.	A grocery store and a hardware store in town, with Belle Fourche about 25 miles for anything larger.	The Wall Food Center on South Boulevard West.	Not recorded in this guide. Check what is open near the address.
Healthcarediffers	Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.	No hospital or clinic in Newell. Sturgis is about 26 miles, Spearfish about 37, and Monument Health has a clinic in Belle Fourche.	The Monument Health Wall Clinic on 7th Avenue is in town. The nearest hospital is Monument Health Rapid City, roughly 50 miles west.	Hospital-level care is in Rapid City, about 15 minutes south.
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.	A nine-hole golf course, the Newell Museum, the Belle Fourche Reservoir north of town, and hunting in every direction.	Badlands National Park about seven miles south, Buffalo Gap National Grassland all around, the National Grasslands Visitor Center on Main Street and the Wall rodeo arena.	Leisure Lane, Steamboat and Castlewood parks are the everyday recreation. Leisure Lane is the big one, with playgrounds, basketball, picnic shelters, open grass and the community garden.
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.	No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.	2 mapped outlines, 2 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
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 federal reclamation townsite from 1910 at the center of a 57,000 acre irrigation project, with a sale barn and its own school.	A complete small prairie town with its own school, clinic and grocery, at the northern gate to the Badlands.	New streets and builder inventory, with Highlands at Norman Ranch adding over 100 first phase homesites across more than 300 acres.
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.	A complete small town with its own K through 12 school and irrigated ground around it, at prices the Hills corridor cannot touch.	Everything a town needs in one place, 50 miles from the city, at prairie prices.	Newer houses on city sewer with Hills views at a price central Rapid City does not offer, and Highlands at Norman Ranch is still selling first phase homesites.
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.	Seventy minutes to Rapid City, 26 miles to a hospital, and an irrigation district assessment that attaches to the land as a lien.	Fifty miles to a hospital and to real shopping, and an economy that runs on a three month season.	You are fifteen minutes out from most of Rapid City's services and you drive I-90 to get to them in the winter. The city is also split between Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4, so the district follows the address.

Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBox Elder
Northern Hills and I-90Newell
Prairie and BadlandsWall
Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorSummerset

Where it sits

Regiondiffers

Box Elder: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Newell: Northern Hills and I-90
Wall: Prairie and Badlands
Summerset: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor

Countydiffers

Box Elder: Pennington County
Newell: Butte County
Wall: Pennington County
Summerset: Meade County

Jurisdictiondiffers

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

Box Elder: City of Box Elder
Newell: Incorporated municipality of Newell, with Butte County outside the limits.
Wall: Incorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.
Summerset: City of Summerset, incorporated July 2005

Corridordiffers

Box Elder: I-90
Newell: US 212 and SD 79
Wall: I-90 exits 109 and 110
Summerset: I-90

To downtown Rapid Citydiffers

Box Elder: 19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Newell: About 54 miles, roughly 70 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
Wall: About 50 miles west on I-90Distance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Summerset: 15 min, 10.0 miDriving time and distance, off peak.

To Ellsworth AFBdiffers

Box Elder: 9 min, 2.3 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.
Wall: About 43 miles westDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Summerset: 30 min, 19.2 miDriving time and distance, off peak.

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.
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.
Wall: I-90 is the lifeline and it is state maintained, but this is open prairie and I-90 does close in a ground blizzard. Plan for that a few times a winter.
Summerset: The commute is I-90, so winter driving here is interstate driving rather than a two lane canyon road.

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.
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.
Wall: About $270,000 average sold, 19 sales over 24 monthsAverage sold $270,435. Black Hills MLS, single family, 24 months through August 2026, as of August 2026. 19 closed sales.
Summerset: Builder inventory sets the level here, and the MLS publishes no Summerset median on its own.

Housing agediffers

Box Elder: Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement
Newell: A 1910 townsite, so genuinely old in-town stock with newer building scattered around it.
Wall: Older stock through town, with a municipal demolition incentive program in place for blighted property.
Summerset: Mostly 2000s to present

New constructiondiffers

Box Elder: Active, with subdivisions still building
Newell: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Wall: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Summerset: Limited, mostly infill and small projects

Acreagediffers

Box Elder: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.
Newell: Acreage parcels are common here
Wall: Acreage parcels are common here
Summerset: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.

Typical lotdiffers

Box Elder: Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats
Newell: Small townsite lots, then irrigated project acreage, then rangeland, in that order as you drive out.
Wall: Platted town lots, and then it jumps straight to ranch scale.
Summerset: Wide lots on new streets

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.
Newell: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Wall: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Summerset: Recorded covenants on some plats, none on others

Utilities and rules

Utility patterndiffers

Box Elder: City water and sewer inside the limits
Newell: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
Wall: City water and sewer inside the limits
Summerset: Sewer collection is provided by the City of Summerset. Water service varies by address and can include Black Hawk Water User District or Diamond D Water in Sun Valley.

Waterdiffers

Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal
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.
Wall: Town of Wall municipal water inside the limits. Rural parcels are on private wells.
Summerset: Black Hawk Water User District, or Diamond D Water in Sun Valley

Sewerdiffers

Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal
Newell: Municipal sewer inside the limits, billed monthly alongside water. Rural parcels are on private septic.
Wall: Town sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.
Summerset: City of Summerset

Short term rentalsdiffers

Box Elder: A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.
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.
Wall: This is genuine seasonal tourism territory at a national park gate. Confirm any town requirement, and note that Wall Drug houses many of its own seasonal workers, which removes demand from the local rental market.
Summerset: The thinnest rules on this list, which means a rental plan has to be pinned down for the specific address.

Schools

School districtdiffers

Box Elder: Douglas School District 51-1Assignment 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.
Wall: Wall School District 51-5Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Summerset: Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4, split within the cityAssignment 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.
Newell: A grocery store and a hardware store in town, with Belle Fourche about 25 miles for anything larger.
Wall: The Wall Food Center on South Boulevard West.
Summerset: Not recorded in this guide. Check what is open near the address.

Healthcarediffers

Box Elder: Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.
Newell: No hospital or clinic in Newell. Sturgis is about 26 miles, Spearfish about 37, and Monument Health has a clinic in Belle Fourche.
Wall: The Monument Health Wall Clinic on 7th Avenue is in town. The nearest hospital is Monument Health Rapid City, roughly 50 miles west.
Summerset: Hospital-level care is in Rapid City, about 15 minutes south.

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.
Newell: A nine-hole golf course, the Newell Museum, the Belle Fourche Reservoir north of town, and hunting in every direction.
Wall: Badlands National Park about seven miles south, Buffalo Gap National Grassland all around, the National Grasslands Visitor Center on Main Street and the Wall rodeo arena.
Summerset: Leisure Lane, Steamboat and Castlewood parks are the everyday recreation. Leisure Lane is the big one, with playgrounds, basketball, picnic shelters, open grass and the community garden.

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.
Newell: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Wall: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Summerset: 2 mapped outlines, 2 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.

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.
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.
Wall: A complete small prairie town with its own school, clinic and grocery, at the northern gate to the Badlands.
Summerset: New streets and builder inventory, with Highlands at Norman Ranch adding over 100 first phase homesites across more than 300 acres.

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.
Newell: A complete small town with its own K through 12 school and irrigated ground around it, at prices the Hills corridor cannot touch.
Wall: Everything a town needs in one place, 50 miles from the city, at prairie prices.
Summerset: Newer houses on city sewer with Hills views at a price central Rapid City does not offer, and Highlands at Norman Ranch is still selling first phase homesites.

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.
Newell: Seventy minutes to Rapid City, 26 miles to a hospital, and an irrigation district assessment that attaches to the land as a lien.
Wall: Fifty miles to a hospital and to real shopping, and an economy that runs on a three month season.
Summerset: You are fifteen minutes out from most of Rapid City's services and you drive I-90 to get to them in the winter. The city is also split between Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4, so the district follows the address.

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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ComparingBox Elder, Newell, Wall, Summerset

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