by Lee Alley.

Black Hills dream homes in Rapid City South Dakota.

What Does Rapid City Look Like?

Rapid City is still a small old-west town, simple and sincere in character, serene and secluded nestled into the Black Hills. You can still ride a bike down Main Street.

You can even walk or bicycle to quietly peaceful trails that sometimes burst with mountain biking excitement for special events. 

The hiking/biking trails where we took these photo images are just above Rapid City's "Founders Park", on the SDSM&T university's "M-Hill."

It's still a smallish innocent environment. But after forty years of intensive urban revitalization since one of the nation's worst flash floods ravaged downtown in 1972, it has leap-frogged Rapid City into the forefront of modern business-supportive and visitor-friendly cities nationwide.

From ranching's rolling prairies to the east (left side below) to gold's wild west cowboy hide-aways in the Black Hills to the west (right side), this area of western South Dakota is a little bit of everything you could look for as a home, vacation destination, college town, retirement center, and especially as an unbeatable place to raise kids. (This panorama looks eastward on the left, south in the center, and west on the right.) It is taken from in town, in the City Limits.)

The relatively newer "West Rapid" starts at "the gap" in the north-south ridge that bisects town and spreads toward Mt. Rushmore, Pactola Lake and the Mystic Miner (a.k.a. Terry Peak) Ski Area.

Rapid City and Black Hills even have their own small School of Mines and Technology, the State University with highest entrance requirements, that is large enough to attract world-class faculty but small enough for students to get to know them personally.

If you would like to get to know more about family attractions, traveler services, hotels and motels, outdoor sports, Rapid City and the Black Hills, special events like the Stock Show, museums such as the Museum of Geology, scenic drives such as The Needles, or even real estate and homes for sale in Rapid City, then check out this place to look for Homes in Rapid City SD.