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Historic place

West Boulevard Historic District

803 West Boulevard, Rapid City, SD

Rapid City's gold-boom elite platted a 190-foot-wide boulevard with a landscaped median in 1885, and more than 600 of the houses their bankers, lumber barons, and hardware magnates built along it are still standing today.

📅 1878–present🏛️ Historic DistrictStill hereBuilt 1878
Open on the mapSlide back to 1878

The story

The neighborhood grew from Rapid City's 1885 Boulevard Addition, anchored by the unusually wide West Boulevard with its landscaped central median. As the town boomed as the commercial gateway to the Black Hills gold fields, its merchant and professional class built here — the oldest surviving house dates to 1878. First listed on the National Register in 1974 (133 buildings), a 1995 boundary increase expanded it to 182 acres and 946 resources, spanning Queen Anne, Foursquare, Craftsman, and Colonial Revival homes from 1878-1945.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

West Boulevard was platted at an unusual 190 feet wide, with a landscaped central median.
The district holds two former hospitals that merged in 1973 to form Rapid City Regional Hospital.
Edge-of-district Wilson Park was built in 1940 as a WPA jobs project, with a stone pergola and ice rink.

Connected places

Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)

Lead, SD
Black Hills

Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

Spearfish, SD
Black Hills

Roughlock Falls

Savoy, SD
Black Hills

Galena (silver camp)

Deadwood, SD
Black Hills

Nemo (Homestake timber camp)

Nemo, SD
Black Hills

Nicollet Hotel

Minneapolis, MN
Queen Anne

Explore the full web of connections on the map.

Nearby history

Art Alley

Alley between 6th & 7th St (Main to St Joseph) · 620 m away
What began as unsanctioned canvases hung on downtown brick walls in the early 2000s grew into a permit-managed, constant

Hotel Alex Johnson

523 6th Street · 652 m away
A railroad executive's Tudor-Revival skyscraper hotel broke ground one day before work started on Mount Rushmore, and it

Firehouse Brewing Co.

610 Main Street · 690 m away
South Dakota's first brewpub poured its first pint inside a 1915 fire hall that served Rapid City's fire department unti

Dinosaur Park

940 Skyline Dr · 703 m away

Duhamel Trading Post

522 6th Street · 707 m away
A Canadian-born saddle maker's hardware store grew into the largest saddle supplier in the United States and a legendary

Elks Theatre

512 6th Street · 724 m away
A 1911 Elks Lodge meeting hall-turned-movie palace sat flood-damaged and vacant for two years, then reopened to reveal a

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Boulevard_Historic_District