Piedmont Valley, South Dakota

The Piedmont Valley is a portion of the "Red Valley" or "Racetrack" around the Black Hills, located in Meade County, South Dakota. It is named for the small, unincorporated town of Piedmont, and is approximately 5 miles wide and 18 miles long, bounded on the west by the foothills of the Black Hills and on the east by the Dakota Hogback, a long rocky ridge which also, like the Racetrack, runs entirely around the Black Hills.

The Piedmont Valley includes a number of towns, listed from north to south, and beginning just south of the Fort Meade Military Reservation:
* Pleasant Valley
* Tilford
* Piedmont
* Stagebarn
* Summerset
* Black Hawk

It is variously considered a suburb of Rapid City or Sturgis.

The area was originally settled by ranchers supplying the gold camps of Deadwood in the late 1870s, and the various small towns were platted and established when railroads were built connecting the gold mining areas, timber-harvesting areas, and Rapid City. Today the mainline of the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern along the east front of the Black Hills continues to operate in the Valley, connecting Rapid City with other Black Hills cities and Colony, Wyoming. Interstate 90 parallels the railroad through the Valley, connecting Rapid City, Sturgis, and continuing west into Wyoming and Montana.

Since World War II, the Piedmont Valley has enjoyed some of the benefits of the Black Hills tourist industry, especially the yearly celebration of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, furnishing campgrounds, and in the last 20 years, motels, stores, and service centers. It is also the home of several small tourist attractions, including the Black Hills Petrified Forest and Bethlehem Cave. Since the mid 1990s, many ranches in the Valley have been subdivided, and strip development along the I-90 corridor now includes many light industrial and service industry facilities, but most year-round residents of the Valley work in other communities.

Parts of the Valley were burned, including several houses, in the Ricco Fire of 2005. [ [http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/politicalblog/?m=20050710 Mount Blogmore: A Rapid City Journal politics blog » 2005 » July ] ]

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