Blackwell, Texas.
Typical home $140,541 (+2.0% in a year). Sweetwater, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$83 (+13%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $2,752 +2%
- $137,789$140,541 since Sep 2025
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Blackwell$738
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Blackwell, TX rose 2.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Blackwell, Nolan County, Texas
Blackwell is a city of 258 people in Nolan County. Unemployment in Nolan County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Nolan County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Blackwell is a very small city in Nolan County, in the dry country of West Texas, where most people know their neighbors. Winters are mild but cool, with January the coldest month, and summers run hot, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a modest amount over the year, and few residents are poor by the usual measures. Homes here cost less than in much of the country.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, in transport, warehouses and utilities, and in shops. A small share work from home. Across Nolan County, some of the largest workplaces are Ludlum Measurements, which makes radiation-detection gauges, Sweetwater ISD, the school district, and Rolling Plains Memorial Hospital. Jobs across the county dipped slightly last year, and unemployment is a little higher than a year ago.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Abilene State Park is a protected area reached by a longer drive. E.V. Spence Reservoir, also a longer drive away, is a large lake suited to a day by the water. Beyond these, daily life in Blackwell tends to be quiet and close to home.
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- 2%below the poverty line
- 4%work from home
What people in Nolan County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nolan County had 6,177 jobs in 2025, 0.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 59° and lows near 29°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 68°. About 24 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bronte Nne weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Nolan County
- Ludlum MeasurementsLevel gauges, radiation-type, manufacturing509
- Sweetwater ISDSchool district350FTE
- USGWall board and quarry254
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters211
- Rolling Plains Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital188FTE
- Sweetwater Gypsum EAST148
- TMC Transportation - Sweetwater Georgia PacificFlatbed trucking, long-distance122
- Sweetwater Gypsum West107
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 14 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,789 people in all across the county; Blackwell has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- DroughtRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Blackwell’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Nolan County and the Sweetwater, TX metro.
Blackwell home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Blackwell$140,541
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Blackwell6
Zip codes with a Blackwell address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Blackwell — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.