Edgemont, SD

Edgemont is a city in Fall River County, South Dakota, on the southern edge of the Black Hills. The 2020 census counted 725 residents. U.S. 18 and South Dakota 471 meet here, with the Elk Mountains and the open country south of the hills close by. BNSF freight trains use Edgemont as a crew-change point, keeping the railroad a working part of the city’s daily geography. Edgemont Public Schools operate one elementary school and one high school.

The city began with the railroad in 1889, just before South Dakota became a state. The line brought a roundhouse, a branch toward Deadwood, and later a wool mill. During World War II, an ammunition depot south of town employed 5,000 people; uranium mining shaped another period between 1960 and 1980. The Mickelson Trail now follows much of the old rail spur into the Black Hills. Edgemont has seen boom and bust, but the tracks, hills, park, and school keep its shape clear. It is a small South Dakota city where freight, former mines, and Black Hills roads meet at the edge of the mountains.