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 Summerset, Whitewood, St. Onge, Box Elder

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

Region: SummersetRapid City and the Ellsworth corridorWhitewoodNorthern Hills and I-90St. OngeNorthern Hills and I-90Box ElderRapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
County: SummersetMeade CountyWhitewoodLawrence CountySt. OngeLawrence CountyBox ElderPennington County
Jurisdiction: SummersetCity of Summerset, incorporated July 2005WhitewoodNot recorded townwide in this guide. The address decides whether it is city or county ground.St. OngeUnincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.Box ElderCity of Box Elder
Corridor: SummersetI-90WhitewoodI-90 and US-85St. OngeSD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at WhitewoodBox ElderI-90
To downtown Rapid City: Summerset15 min, 10.0 miWhitewoodAbout 35 minutesSt. OngeAbout 44 miles, roughly 48 minutesBox Elder19 min, 10.9 mi
To Ellsworth AFB: Summerset30 min, 19.2 miWhitewoodAbout 40 minutesSt. OngeAbout 45 milesBox Elder9 min, 2.3 mi

Side by side

Summerset, Whitewood, St. Onge, Box Elder

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

The selected Black Hills communities compared on location, housing, utilities, schools, daily errands, mapped subdivisions and the trade each one asks for
Attribute	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorSummerset	Northern Hills and I-90Whitewood	Northern Hills and I-90St. Onge	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBox Elder
Where it sits
Regiondiffers	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor	Northern Hills and I-90	Northern Hills and I-90	Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Countydiffers	Meade County	Lawrence County	Lawrence County	Pennington County
JurisdictiondiffersCity versus county decides who provides service and who inspects the work.	City of Summerset, incorporated July 2005	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The address decides whether it is city or county ground.	Unincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.	City of Box Elder
Corridordiffers	I-90	I-90 and US-85	SD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at Whitewood	I-90
To downtown Rapid Citydiffers	15 min, 10.0 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 35 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 44 miles, roughly 48 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
To Ellsworth AFBdiffers	30 min, 19.2 miDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 40 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.	About 45 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.	9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Winter drivingdiffers	The commute is I-90, so winter driving here is interstate driving rather than a two lane canyon road.	I-90 and US-85 are state maintained. The town streets and the roads out past them clear on their own schedule.	Highway 34 is state maintained and connects three directions. County and private roads off it are a different conversation.	I-90 is state maintained and the city clears the newer plats. Box Elder publishes no plow priority map, so ask a neighbor how the street clears after a real storm.
Housing and lots
Typical pricediffers	Builder inventory sets the level here, and the MLS publishes no Summerset median on its own.	No town median is published for Whitewood, and it sits in Lawrence County, which the Mount Rushmore Area MLS covers rather than the Black Hills feed behind the figures here. Prices sit under Sturgis, Spearfish and Deadwood, each about ten minutes out.	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.	$340k to $400kMedian sold $367,000. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 235 closed sales.
Housing agediffers	Mostly 2000s to present	Older and modest through town, so systems matter more than finishes.	An 1891 townsite with genuinely old buildings, surrounded by ranch and acreage property of every era.	Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement
New constructiondiffers	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Limited, mostly infill and small projects	Active, with subdivisions still building
Acreagediffers	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.	Acreage parcels are common here	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot size.
Typical lotdiffers	Wide lots on new streets	Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot dimensions.	Small townsite lots, with acreage and ranch ground around them.	Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats
Covenants and HOAdiffersCovenants are recorded per plat. The title commitment lists what binds the parcel.	Recorded covenants on some plats, none on others	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.
Utilities and rules
Utility patterndiffers	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.	Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it	Mostly private well and septic	City water and sewer inside the limits
Waterdiffers	Black Hawk Water User District, or Diamond D Water in Sun Valley	Municipal water inside the limits, a private well or a district system outside them.Read off the townwide utility pattern in the guide. The service address controls, so confirm the provider before you write an offer.	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.	City of Box Elder municipal
Sewerdiffers	City of Summerset	City sewer inside the limits, private septic outside them.Read off the townwide utility pattern in the guide. The service address controls, so confirm the provider before you write an offer.	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.	City of Box Elder municipal
Short term rentalsdiffers	The thinnest rules on this list, which means a rental plan has to be pinned down for the specific address.	No short term rental provisions in the city code, and Rally season renting is common here under state rules.	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.	A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.
Schools
School districtdiffers	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.	Meade School District 46-1, despite being in Lawrence CountyAssignment 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.	Douglas School District 51-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.
Daily errands
Groceriesdiffers	Not recorded in this guide. Check what is open near the address.	No full-service grocery store is in Whitewood. Most larger grocery trips go to Sturgis or Spearfish.	Nothing in town. Spearfish is eleven miles southeast and Belle Fourche thirteen northwest.	Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.
Healthcarediffers	Hospital-level care is in Rapid City, about 15 minutes south.	Monument Health Sturgis HospitalNo hospital in Whitewood. Sturgis is the nearer of the two, with Spearfish next.	Monument Health Spearfish Hospital, a 35 bed facility with a 24 hour emergency department, about 18 minutes away.	Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.
Recreationdiffers	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.	Sturgis and Bear Butte State Park about eight miles east, Deadwood 10 to 12 miles southwest, Spearfish and Spearfish Canyon 10 to 12 miles northwest.	Creek bottoms, hay ground and hunting country, with Spearfish Canyon and the northern Hills half an hour away.	The Liberty Center, the city park and ballfield network, and the South Dakota Air and Space Museum are the in-town recreation. The Badlands are a day trip, not your neighborhood park.
Mapped subdivisions
Outlines on filediffers	2 mapped outlines, 2 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.	23 mapped outlines, 0 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.	16 mapped outlines, 3 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
The trade
Housing and patterndiffers	New streets and builder inventory, with Highlands at Norman Ranch adding over 100 first phase homesites across more than 300 acres.	A quiet main street with Sturgis, Spearfish and Deadwood each about ten minutes out and the interstate right there.	An 1891 French-Canadian railroad townsite that is now a cattle auction crossroads and an acreage corridor.	A young city building its first downtown at Liberty Plaza on 110 acres, with roughly 800 residential units planned.
What you gaindiffers	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.	Small town prices with three larger towns about ten minutes out in three directions, in Meade 46-1 despite sitting in Lawrence County.	The cheapest ground in the northern Hills that still puts you eleven miles from a hospital and sixteen from three towns.	The Ellsworth main gate is in town, 9 minutes from most addresses, on city water and sewer, with the region's newest housing pipeline.
What you give updiffers	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.	Anything past the basics is a drive to Sturgis, Spearfish or Deadwood, and there are no published MLS figures for the town on its own.	A three-way school district split you have to verify per parcel, and no services of any kind in town.	Comparable sales run thin inside brand new subdivisions and builder incentives move the effective price without moving the list price. I-90 fills at shift change, and the flight line is close enough that you hear it.

Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorSummerset
Northern Hills and I-90Whitewood
Northern Hills and I-90St. Onge
Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridorBox Elder

Where it sits

Regiondiffers

Summerset: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor
Whitewood: Northern Hills and I-90
St. Onge: Northern Hills and I-90
Box Elder: Rapid City and the Ellsworth corridor

Countydiffers

Summerset: Meade County
Whitewood: Lawrence County
St. Onge: Lawrence County
Box Elder: Pennington County

Jurisdictiondiffers

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

Summerset: City of Summerset, incorporated July 2005
Whitewood: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The address decides whether it is city or county ground.
St. Onge: Unincorporated. No town government. Lawrence County zones the parcels and the Sheriff patrols them.
Box Elder: City of Box Elder

Corridordiffers

Summerset: I-90
Whitewood: I-90 and US-85
St. Onge: SD 34, with I-90 seven miles southeast at Whitewood
Box Elder: I-90

To downtown Rapid Citydiffers

Summerset: 15 min, 10.0 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Whitewood: About 35 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
St. Onge: About 44 miles, roughly 48 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
Box Elder: 19 min, 10.9 miDriving time and distance, off peak.

To Ellsworth AFBdiffers

Summerset: 30 min, 19.2 miDriving time and distance, off peak.
Whitewood: About 40 minutesDriving time and distance, off peak.
St. Onge: About 45 milesDistance only. Drive time is not measured for this community, so time it from the parcel.
Box Elder: 9 min, 2.3 miDriving time and distance, off peak.

Winter drivingdiffers

Summerset: The commute is I-90, so winter driving here is interstate driving rather than a two lane canyon road.
Whitewood: I-90 and US-85 are state maintained. The town streets and the roads out past them clear on their own schedule.
St. Onge: Highway 34 is state maintained and connects three directions. County and private roads off it are a different conversation.
Box Elder: I-90 is state maintained and the city clears the newer plats. Box Elder publishes no plow priority map, so ask a neighbor how the street clears after a real storm.

Housing and lots

Typical pricediffers

Summerset: Builder inventory sets the level here, and the MLS publishes no Summerset median on its own.
Whitewood: No town median is published for Whitewood, and it sits in Lawrence County, which the Mount Rushmore Area MLS covers rather than the Black Hills feed behind the figures here. Prices sit under Sturgis, Spearfish and Deadwood, each about ten minutes out.
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.
Box Elder: $340k to $400kMedian sold $367,000. Black Hills MLS, single family, trailing 12 months, as of August 2026. 235 closed sales.

Housing agediffers

Summerset: Mostly 2000s to present
Whitewood: Older and modest through town, so systems matter more than finishes.
St. Onge: An 1891 townsite with genuinely old buildings, surrounded by ranch and acreage property of every era.
Box Elder: Heavily new construction since the B-21 announcement

New constructiondiffers

Summerset: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Whitewood: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
St. Onge: Limited, mostly infill and small projects
Box Elder: Active, with subdivisions still building

Acreagediffers

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

Typical lotdiffers

Summerset: Wide lots on new streets
Whitewood: Not recorded townwide in this guide. The recorded plat carries the lot dimensions.
St. Onge: Small townsite lots, with acreage and ranch ground around them.
Box Elder: Small city lots, about 0.15 to 0.18 acres in the newer plats

Covenants and HOAdiffers

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

Summerset: Recorded covenants on some plats, none on others
Whitewood: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.
St. Onge: Few plats here carry recorded covenants
Box Elder: Not recorded townwide in this guide. Read the recorded documents for the plat.

Utilities and rules

Utility patterndiffers

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.
Whitewood: Mixed, municipal service in town with well and septic outside it
St. Onge: Mostly private well and septic
Box Elder: City water and sewer inside the limits

Waterdiffers

Summerset: Black Hawk Water User District, or Diamond D Water in Sun Valley
Whitewood: Municipal water inside the limits, a private well or a district system outside them.Read off the townwide utility pattern in the guide. The service address controls, so confirm the provider before you write an offer.
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.
Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal

Sewerdiffers

Summerset: City of Summerset
Whitewood: City sewer inside the limits, private septic outside them.Read off the townwide utility pattern in the guide. The service address controls, so confirm the provider before you write an offer.
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.
Box Elder: City of Box Elder municipal

Short term rentalsdiffers

Summerset: The thinnest rules on this list, which means a rental plan has to be pinned down for the specific address.
Whitewood: No short term rental provisions in the city code, and Rally season renting is common here under state rules.
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.
Box Elder: A verify first town for rental plans, with one specific misconception the guide clears up.

Schools

School districtdiffers

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.
Whitewood: Meade School District 46-1, despite being in Lawrence CountyAssignment 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.
Box Elder: Douglas School District 51-1Assignment follows the official boundary for the address. Confirm with the district.

Daily errands

Groceriesdiffers

Summerset: Not recorded in this guide. Check what is open near the address.
Whitewood: No full-service grocery store is in Whitewood. Most larger grocery trips go to Sturgis or Spearfish.
St. Onge: Nothing in town. Spearfish is eleven miles southeast and Belle Fourche thirteen northwest.
Box Elder: Lynn's Dakotamart is a full-service grocery store in town.

Healthcarediffers

Summerset: Hospital-level care is in Rapid City, about 15 minutes south.
Whitewood: Monument Health Sturgis HospitalNo hospital in Whitewood. Sturgis is the nearer of the two, with Spearfish next.
St. Onge: Monument Health Spearfish Hospital, a 35 bed facility with a 24 hour emergency department, about 18 minutes away.
Box Elder: Monument Health Box Elder Clinic provides primary and urgent care in town. Hospital-level care is in Rapid City.

Recreationdiffers

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.
Whitewood: Sturgis and Bear Butte State Park about eight miles east, Deadwood 10 to 12 miles southwest, Spearfish and Spearfish Canyon 10 to 12 miles northwest.
St. Onge: Creek bottoms, hay ground and hunting country, with Spearfish Canyon and the northern Hills half an hour away.
Box Elder: The Liberty Center, the city park and ballfield network, and the South Dakota Air and Space Museum are the in-town recreation. The Badlands are a day trip, not your neighborhood park.

Mapped subdivisions

Outlines on filediffers

Summerset: 2 mapped outlines, 2 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
Whitewood: 23 mapped outlines, 0 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.
St. Onge: No recorded subdivision outlines drawn for this community yet.
Box Elder: 16 mapped outlines, 3 with a full guideReference outlines from county and city GIS, not surveys. The recorded plat controls.

The trade

Housing and patterndiffers

Summerset: New streets and builder inventory, with Highlands at Norman Ranch adding over 100 first phase homesites across more than 300 acres.
Whitewood: A quiet main street with Sturgis, Spearfish and Deadwood each about ten minutes out and the interstate right there.
St. Onge: An 1891 French-Canadian railroad townsite that is now a cattle auction crossroads and an acreage corridor.
Box Elder: A young city building its first downtown at Liberty Plaza on 110 acres, with roughly 800 residential units planned.

What you gaindiffers

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.
Whitewood: Small town prices with three larger towns about ten minutes out in three directions, in Meade 46-1 despite sitting in Lawrence County.
St. Onge: The cheapest ground in the northern Hills that still puts you eleven miles from a hospital and sixteen from three towns.
Box Elder: The Ellsworth main gate is in town, 9 minutes from most addresses, on city water and sewer, with the region's newest housing pipeline.

What you give updiffers

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.
Whitewood: Anything past the basics is a drive to Sturgis, Spearfish or Deadwood, and there are no published MLS figures for the town on its own.
St. Onge: A three-way school district split you have to verify per parcel, and no services of any kind in town.
Box Elder: Comparable sales run thin inside brand new subdivisions and builder incentives move the effective price without moving the list price. I-90 fills at shift change, and the flight line is close enough that you hear it.

Where this comes from

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

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

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

Last updated August 2026

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ComparingSummerset, Whitewood, St. Onge, Box Elder

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