The story
Art Alley emerged organically around 2003 in the service alley between 6th and 7th Streets, as local artists began painting directly on the brick walls. It ran informally for over a decade until the city and Rapid City Arts Council introduced a permit system in 2016. Its defining feature is impermanence — artists may paint over existing work, so sections change constantly and no piece is ever truly permanent.
Everything that was here
- 2003–present · still open
Art AlleyPublic Art
What began as unsanctioned canvases hung on downtown brick walls in the early 2000s grew into a permit-managed, constantly-repainted open-air mural gallery a block from the Hotel Alex Johnson.
See the map in 2004 →
Did you know?
There is no single "founder" — its origin is described as organic and communal.
It operated informally for roughly 13 years before a permit system arrived in 2016.
Because artists paint over each other, some walls change multiple times a day.
Nearby history
Hotel Alex Johnson
523 6th Street · 56 m away
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522 6th Street · 90 m away
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Firehouse Brewing Co.
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Elks Theatre
512 6th Street · 113 m away
A 1911 Elks Lodge meeting hall-turned-movie palace sat flood-damaged and vacant for two years, then reopened to reveal a
Main Street Square & the City of Presidents
512 Main Street · 187 m away
A downtown parking lot and an adult video store became, within a decade, both a plaza with a winter ice rink and a life-
West Boulevard Historic District
803 West Boulevard · 620 m away
Rapid City's gold-boom elite platted a 190-foot-wide boulevard with a landscaped median in 1885, and more than 600 of th
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