New Underwood, SD

New Underwood is a Pennington County city of 590 people in the 2020 census, on the high plains east of Rapid City. The community began around 1906 and took the name of John Underwood, a cattleman. Its location puts it between the Black Hills and the open ranch country of western South Dakota, with roads connecting local farms, school grounds, and larger services in Rapid City and Wall.

The city is served by New Underwood School District 51-3, which keeps education at the center of local life. For years, the town also had a famous novelty: the smallest biker bar in the world, a tiny establishment that closed in 2017. That bar became a memorable piece of the city's identity, but the broader story is a cattle and school town that grew after the railroad-era settlement of the early twentieth century. New Underwood remains a compact plains community whose name remembers a rancher and whose horizon opens toward the Black Hills.