Utilities are not particularly exciting businesses, but they do tend to be fairly reliable, given that energy is vital to modern day life. Black Hills Corporation (NYSE: BKH) is the epitome of reliability, particularly when you examine its dividend. But here's a deeper dive into why this regulated utility is a no-brainer dividend stock.

Black Hills has increased its dividend annually for 53 consecutive years, making it a Dividend King. It is one of only six utilities that have increased their dividends for that long. Of those six, most of them are water utilities, so Black Hills is one of the only electric utilities with this kind of track record. It is also one of the highest yielding of this elite group (more on the dividend yield in a moment). You don't achieve a dividend record like that by accident.

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Source Fool.com