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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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 St. Onge, Wall, Edgemont, Black Hawk

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

Region: St. OngeNorthern Hills and I-90WallPrairie and BadlandsEdgemontCentral and Southern HillsBlack HawkRapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
County: St. OngeLawrence CountyWallPennington CountyEdgemontFall River CountyBlack HawkMeade County
Jurisdiction: 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.EdgemontIncorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.Black HawkUnincorporated Meade County
Corridor: St. OngeSD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at WhitewoodWallI-90 exits 109 and 110EdgemontUS 18 and SD 471Black HawkI-90
To downtown Rapid City: St. OngeAbout 44 miles, roughly 48 minutesWallAbout 50 miles west on I-90EdgemontAbout 100 miles northeastBlack HawkAbout 12 to 15 minutes
To Ellsworth AFB: St. OngeAbout 45 milesWallAbout 43 miles westEdgemontAbout 110 milesBlack HawkAbout 30 minutes, the same I-90 run as Summerset just north

Side by side

St. Onge, Wall, Edgemont, Black Hawk

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	Northern Hills and I-90St. Onge	Prairie and BadlandsWall	Central and Southern HillsEdgemont	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBlack Hawk
Where it sits
Regiondiffers	Northern Hills and I-90	Prairie and Badlands	Central and Southern Hills	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Countydiffers	Lawrence County	Pennington County	Fall River County	Meade County
JurisdictiondiffersCity versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.	Unincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.	Incorporated town of Wall, with Pennington County outside the limits.	Incorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.	Unincorporated Meade County
Corridordiffers	SD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at Whitewood	I-90 exits 109 and 110	US 18 and SD 471	I-90
To downtown Rapid Citydiffers	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.	About 100 miles northeastDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	About 12 to 15 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
To Ellsworth AFBdiffers	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.	About 110 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	About 30 minutes, the same I-90 run as Summerset just northDriving time and distance, off peak.
Winter drivingdiffers	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.	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.	The road out front may be maintained publicly or by the neighborhood, so ask who plows before you buy.
Housing and lots
Typical pricediffers	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.	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.	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.
Housing agediffers	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.	An 1890 railroad town, so mostly older stock, with about a quarter of units vacant at the 2020 count.	Mixed street to street, sometimes neighbor to neighbor
New constructiondiffers	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	None underway	Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Acreagediffers	Acreage parcels are common here	Acreage parcels are common here	Acreage parcels are common here	Larger lots and acre properties are part of the Black Hawk market, including properties with room for shops and outbuildings.
Typical lotdiffers	Small townsite lots, with acreage and ranch ground around them.	Platted town lots, and then it jumps straight to ranch scale.	Town lots inside the limits, ranch scale outside them.	Bigger lots, with shop space and outbuildings normal
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 othersRecorded covenants vary by subdivision and should be checked for the specific property.
Utilities and rules
Utility patterndiffers	Mostly private well and septic	City water and sewer inside the limits	City water and sewer inside the limits	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
Waterdiffers	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.	City of Edgemont municipal water. Rural parcels are on private wells.	Black Hawk Water User District
Sewerdiffers	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 sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.	Black Hawk Sanitary District serves roughly 200 homes and businesses; properties outside the district are on private septic
Short term rentalsdiffers	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.	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 municipal short term rental ordinance, because there is no municipality. State licensing still applies, and the subdivision covenant usually decides.
Schools
School districtdiffers	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.	Edgemont School District 23-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.	Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 for most addressesAssignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Daily errands
Groceriesdiffers	Nothing in town. Spearfish is eleven miles southeast and Belle Fourche thirteen northwest.	The Wall Food Center on South Boulevard West.	Small-town grocery and convenience in Edgemont, with Hot Springs about 35 miles east for more.	No full-service grocery store is in Black Hawk. Most larger grocery trips go into Rapid City.
Healthcarediffers	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.	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 Rapid City Hospital
Recreationdiffers	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.	The hundred-year-old city park, the campground, the Elk Mountains and open country in every direction.	Piedmont and the Stagebarn area are just north, with the central hills close enough for a half day.
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.	12 mapped outlines, 5 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
The trade
Housing and patterndiffers	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.	A working BNSF crew-change town founded in 1890, at the far southern edge of the Hills below the Elk Mountains.	Unincorporated foothills pockets where lot size, home age and outbuildings change from one parcel to the next.
What you gaindiffers	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.	More town per dollar than anywhere else in the region, with its own school district and city utilities.	Bigger lots, room for a shop, and about 12 to 15 minutes to downtown Rapid City, without a city hall setting the local rules.
What you give updiffers	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.	A hundred miles from Rapid City, 35 from a hospital, with two unresolved questions hanging over the local economy.	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.

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

Where it sits

Regiondiffers

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

Countydiffers

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

Jurisdictiondiffers

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

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.
Edgemont: Incorporated city of Edgemont, with Fall River County outside the limits.
Black Hawk: Unincorporated Meade County

Corridordiffers

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

To downtown Rapid Citydiffers

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.
Edgemont: About 100 miles northeastDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Black Hawk: About 12 to 15 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.

To Ellsworth AFBdiffers

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.
Edgemont: About 110 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Black Hawk: About 30 minutes, the same I-90 run as Summerset just northDriving time and distance, off peak.

Winter drivingdiffers

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.
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.
Black Hawk: The road out front may be maintained publicly or by the neighborhood, so ask who plows before you buy.

Housing and lots

Typical pricediffers

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.
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.
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.

Housing agediffers

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.
Edgemont: An 1890 railroad town, so mostly older stock, with about a quarter of units vacant at the 2020 count.
Black Hawk: Mixed street to street, sometimes neighbor to neighbor

New constructiondiffers

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

Acreagediffers

St. Onge: Acreage parcels are common here
Wall: Acreage parcels are common here
Edgemont: Acreage parcels are common here
Black Hawk: Larger lots and acre properties are part of the Black Hawk market, including properties with room for shops and outbuildings.

Typical lotdiffers

St. Onge: Small townsite lots, with acreage and ranch ground around them.
Wall: Platted town lots, and then it jumps straight to ranch scale.
Edgemont: Town lots inside the limits, ranch scale outside them.
Black Hawk: Bigger lots, with shop space and outbuildings normal

Covenants and HOAdiffers

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

St. Onge: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Wall: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Edgemont: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Black Hawk: Recorded covenants on some plats, none on othersRecorded covenants vary by subdivision and should be checked for the specific property.

Utilities and rules

Utility patterndiffers

St. Onge: Mostly private well and septic
Wall: City water and sewer inside the limits
Edgemont: City water and sewer inside the limits
Black Hawk: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it

Waterdiffers

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.
Edgemont: City of Edgemont municipal water. Rural parcels are on private wells.
Black Hawk: Black Hawk Water User District

Sewerdiffers

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.
Edgemont: City sewer inside the limits, with private septic on rural parcels.
Black Hawk: Black Hawk Sanitary District serves roughly 200 homes and businesses; properties outside the district are on private septic

Short term rentalsdiffers

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.
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.
Black Hawk: No municipal short term rental ordinance, because there is no municipality. State licensing still applies, and the subdivision covenant usually decides.

Schools

School districtdiffers

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.
Edgemont: Edgemont School District 23-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Black Hawk: Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 for most addressesAssignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.

Daily errands

Groceriesdiffers

St. Onge: Nothing in town. Spearfish is eleven miles southeast and Belle Fourche thirteen northwest.
Wall: The Wall Food Center on South Boulevard West.
Edgemont: Small-town grocery and convenience in Edgemont, with Hot Springs about 35 miles east for more.
Black Hawk: No full-service grocery store is in Black Hawk. Most larger grocery trips go into Rapid City.

Healthcarediffers

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.
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.
Black Hawk: Monument Health Rapid City Hospital

Recreationdiffers

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.
Edgemont: The hundred-year-old city park, the campground, the Elk Mountains and open country in every direction.
Black Hawk: Piedmont and the Stagebarn area are just north, with the central hills close enough for a half day.

Mapped subdivisions

Outlines on filediffers

St. Onge: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Wall: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Edgemont: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Black Hawk: 12 mapped outlines, 5 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.

The trade

Housing and patterndiffers

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.
Edgemont: A working BNSF crew-change town founded in 1890, at the far southern edge of the Hills below the Elk Mountains.
Black Hawk: Unincorporated foothills pockets where lot size, home age and outbuildings change from one parcel to the next.

What you gaindiffers

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.
Edgemont: More town per dollar than anywhere else in the region, with its own school district and city utilities.
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.

What you give updiffers

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.
Edgemont: A hundred miles from Rapid City, 35 from a hospital, with two unresolved questions hanging over the local economy.
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.

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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ComparingSt. Onge, Wall, Edgemont, Black Hawk

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