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 Edgemont, St. Onge, Wall, Summerset

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

Region: EdgemontCentral and Southern HillsSt. OngeNorthern Hills and I-90WallPrairie and BadlandsSummersetRapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
County: EdgemontFall River CountySt. OngeLawrence CountyWallPennington CountySummersetMeade County
Jurisdiction: EdgemontIncorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.St. OngeUnincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.WallIncorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.SummersetCity of Summerset, incorporated July 2005
Corridor: EdgemontUS 18 and SD 471St. OngeSD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at WhitewoodWallI-90 exits 109 and 110SummersetI-90
To downtown Rapid City: EdgemontAbout 100 miles northeastSt. OngeAbout 44 miles, roughly 48 minutesWallAbout 50 miles west on I-90Summerset15 min, 10.0 mi
To Ellsworth AFB: EdgemontAbout 110 milesSt. OngeAbout 45 milesWallAbout 43 miles westSummerset30 min, 19.2 mi

Side by side

Edgemont, St. Onge, 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	Central and Southern HillsEdgemont	Northern Hills and I-90St. Onge	Prairie and BadlandsWall	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorSummerset
Where it sits
Regiondiffers	Central and Southern Hills	Northern Hills and I-90	Prairie and Badlands	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Countydiffers	Fall River County	Lawrence County	Pennington County	Meade County
JurisdictiondiffersCity versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.	Incorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.	Unincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.	Incorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.	City of Summerset, incorporated July 2005
Corridordiffers	US 18 and SD 471	SD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at Whitewood	I-90 exits 109 and 110	I-90
To downtown Rapid Citydiffers	About 100 miles northeastDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	About 44 miles, roughly 48 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	About 110 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	About 45 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	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.	Highway 34 is state maintained and connects three directions. County and private roads off it are a different conversation.	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	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.	No figure published. St. Onge is Mount Rushmore Area MLS territory and the current feed covers only the Black Hills MLS, so a zero here would be a gap in the data rather than a fact about the market.	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	An 1890 railroad town, so mostly older stock, with about a quarter of units vacant at the 2020 count.	An 1891 townsite with genuinely old buildings, surrounded by ranch and acreage property of every era.	Older stock through town, with a municipal demolition incentive program in place for blighted property.	Mostly 2000s to present
New constructiondiffers	None underway	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Acreagediffers	Acreage parcels are common here	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	Town lots inside the limits, ranch scale outside them.	Small townsite lots, with acreage and ranch ground around them.	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.	Few plats here carry recorded covenants	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	Mostly private well and septic	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 Edgemont municipal water. Rural parcels are on private wells.	The Saint Onge Sewer and Water Company serves about 78 connections around the townsite, with a clean compliance record. Parcels outside that system are on private wells. There is no rural water district covering this area.	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 sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.	The water company's name implies sewer service, but I have not been able to verify from the public record which parcels it reaches. Assume private septic outside the townsite and confirm the rest before closing.	Town sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.	City of Summerset
Short term rentalsdiffers	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.	Unincorporated Lawrence County, so no municipal ordinance applies. Note that unincorporated Lawrence County declined to require a vacation home rental permit, so there is no county permit to obtain either.	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	Edgemont School District 23-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Spearfish 40-2 at the townsite, with Belle Fourche 09-1 to the north and Meade 46-1 to the east. Parcel specific.Assignment 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	Small-town grocery and convenience in Edgemont, with Hot Springs about 35 miles east for more.	Nothing in town. Spearfish is eleven miles southeast and Belle Fourche thirteen northwest.	The Wall Food Center on South Boulevard West.	Not recorded in this guide. Check what is open near the address.
Healthcarediffers	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 Spearfish Hospital, a 35 bed facility with a 24 hour emergency department, about 18 minutes away.	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 hundred-year-old city park, the campground, the Elk Mountains and open country in every direction.	Creek bottoms, hay ground and hunting country, with Spearfish Canyon and the northern Hills half an hour away.	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	No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.	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 working BNSF crew-change town founded in 1890, at the far southern edge of the Hills below the Elk Mountains.	An 1891 French-Canadian railroad townsite that is now a cattle auction crossroads and an acreage corridor.	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	More town per dollar than anywhere else in the region, with its own school district and city utilities.	The cheapest ground in the northern Hills that still puts you eleven miles from a hospital and sixteen from three towns.	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	A hundred miles from Rapid City, 35 from a hospital, with two unresolved questions hanging over the local economy.	A three-way school district split you have to verify per parcel, and no services of any kind in town.	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.

Central and Southern HillsEdgemont
Northern Hills and I-90St. Onge
Prairie and BadlandsWall
Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorSummerset

Where it sits

Regiondiffers

Edgemont: Central and Southern Hills
St. Onge: Northern Hills and I-90
Wall: Prairie and Badlands
Summerset: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor

Countydiffers

Edgemont: Fall River County
St. Onge: Lawrence County
Wall: Pennington County
Summerset: Meade County

Jurisdictiondiffers

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

Edgemont: Incorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.
St. Onge: Unincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.
Wall: Incorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.
Summerset: City of Summerset, incorporated July 2005

Corridordiffers

Edgemont: US 18 and SD 471
St. Onge: SD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at Whitewood
Wall: I-90 exits 109 and 110
Summerset: I-90

To downtown Rapid Citydiffers

Edgemont: About 100 miles northeastDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
St. Onge: About 44 miles, roughly 48 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

Edgemont: About 110 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
St. Onge: About 45 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

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.
St. Onge: Highway 34 is state maintained and connects three directions. County and private roads off it are a different conversation.
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

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.
St. Onge: No figure published. St. Onge is Mount Rushmore Area MLS territory and the current feed covers only the Black Hills MLS, so a zero here would be a gap in the data rather than a fact about the market.
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

Edgemont: An 1890 railroad town, so mostly older stock, with about a quarter of units vacant at the 2020 count.
St. Onge: An 1891 townsite with genuinely old buildings, surrounded by ranch and acreage property of every era.
Wall: Older stock through town, with a municipal demolition incentive program in place for blighted property.
Summerset: Mostly 2000s to present

New constructiondiffers

Edgemont: None underway
St. Onge: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Wall: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Summerset: Limited, mostly infill and small projects

Acreagediffers

Edgemont: Acreage parcels are common here
St. Onge: 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

Edgemont: Town lots inside the limits, ranch scale outside them.
St. Onge: Small townsite lots, with acreage and ranch ground around them.
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.

Edgemont: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
St. Onge: 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

Edgemont: City water and sewer inside the limits
St. Onge: Mostly private well and septic
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

Edgemont: City of Edgemont municipal water. Rural parcels are on private wells.
St. Onge: The Saint Onge Sewer and Water Company serves about 78 connections around the townsite, with a clean compliance record. Parcels outside that system are on private wells. There is no rural water district covering this area.
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

Edgemont: City sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.
St. Onge: The water company's name implies sewer service, but I have not been able to verify from the public record which parcels it reaches. Assume private septic outside the townsite and confirm the rest before closing.
Wall: Town sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.
Summerset: City of Summerset

Short term rentalsdiffers

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.
St. Onge: Unincorporated Lawrence County, so no municipal ordinance applies. Note that unincorporated Lawrence County declined to require a vacation home rental permit, so there is no county permit to obtain either.
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

Edgemont: Edgemont School District 23-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
St. Onge: Spearfish 40-2 at the townsite, with Belle Fourche 09-1 to the north and Meade 46-1 to the east. Parcel specific.Assignment 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

Edgemont: Small-town grocery and convenience in Edgemont, with Hot Springs about 35 miles east for more.
St. Onge: Nothing in town. Spearfish is eleven miles southeast and Belle Fourche thirteen northwest.
Wall: The Wall Food Center on South Boulevard West.
Summerset: Not recorded in this guide. Check what is open near the address.

Healthcarediffers

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.
St. Onge: Monument Health Spearfish Hospital, a 35 bed facility with a 24 hour emergency department, about 18 minutes away.
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

Edgemont: The hundred-year-old city park, the campground, the Elk Mountains and open country in every direction.
St. Onge: Creek bottoms, hay ground and hunting country, with Spearfish Canyon and the northern Hills half an hour away.
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

Edgemont: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
St. Onge: 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

Edgemont: A working BNSF crew-change town founded in 1890, at the far southern edge of the Hills below the Elk Mountains.
St. Onge: An 1891 French-Canadian railroad townsite that is now a cattle auction crossroads and an acreage corridor.
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

Edgemont: More town per dollar than anywhere else in the region, with its own school district and city utilities.
St. Onge: The cheapest ground in the northern Hills that still puts you eleven miles from a hospital and sixteen from three towns.
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

Edgemont: A hundred miles from Rapid City, 35 from a hospital, with two unresolved questions hanging over the local economy.
St. Onge: A three-way school district split you have to verify per parcel, and no services of any kind in town.
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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ComparingEdgemont, St. Onge, Wall, Summerset

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