Internal reference — all published content
Last week our neighborhood association held a street safety workshop at the community center off Oak Street. It was prompted by a series of traffic incidents, one of them fatal, and the stated goal …
opinion
I went to vote in the Gallatin County school district election on Tuesday. When I arrived at my polling location at 2 p.m., the poll worker looked up from her book with the expression of someone who …
letters
Big Sky Cinema in Dillon is closing after decades and the building is being sold to become a Taco Bell. I don’t live in Dillon, but this still feels personal. When a town loses its movie theater …
letters
There’s a new Montana-made energy drink at the Co-op and it costs $5.49 for a single can. Five forty-nine. For caffeine. I work the breakfast shift at a restaurant on Main and the closing shift …
opinion
The Montana Department of Transportation has installed new signs along U.S. 191 near the mouth of Gallatin Canyon warning drivers of elk crossings. The signs feature a picture of an elk. As if we …
opinion
I read that two hikers were injured by bears on the Mystic Falls Trail near Old Faithful last week. First, I hope they recover. Second, and I say this with respect, the trail is called Mystic Falls. …
letters
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks confirmed this week that boat validation stickers are no longer required on watercraft in the state, removing one of the few remaining reasons boaters had to interact …
local
The City of Bozeman announced Monday an ambitious economic development initiative aimed at attracting 1,000 new jobs to the Gallatin Valley over the next three years. The plan includes targeted …
local
Big Sky Cinema in Dillon has permanently closed after decades of operation, with the property sold to a Missoula-based Taco Bell franchisee. The transaction replaces one of Beaverhead County’s …
local
A California couple has been cleared to resume construction on a three-story home inside Glacier National Park after a protracted legal dispute that united an otherwise fractured Flathead Valley …
local
The City of Helena announced this week that it is continuing to explore the possibility of installing roundabouts at several major intersections, a process that has now been underway for longer than …
local
When the 2026 Gallatin Valley Housing Report confirmed that Bozeman’s median home price has reached $800,000, The Bee asked the question that most residents have been asking for years, usually …
investigative
Four Democratic candidates for Montana House seats gathered in Bozeman Tuesday evening to discuss voting access, affordable housing, health care, climate, and immigration enforcement — a roster of …
local
An MSU sociology senior submitted her honors thesis on gentrification in the Gallatin Valley this week from a one-bedroom apartment on West Babcock that rents for $1,950 per month, a detail her thesis …
campus
Every day I cross Main Street at the midblock crosswalk near the Rouse intersection, and every day I place my life in the hands of drivers who may or may not see me, respect me, or understand the …
opinion
The City of Belgrade and Gallatin County announced this week that they have reached an agreement to transition development oversight of the “Belgrade Donut,” a ring of unincorporated land …
local
A rare moment of bipartisan agreement emerged this week when organic farmers and Make America Healthy Again advocates found themselves on the same side of a farm bill provision, leaving both groups …
local
On Monday it was 72 degrees. I wore shorts. I sat on my porch. I thought: we made it. Winter is over. On Tuesday it snowed four inches. On Wednesday it was 65 and sunny. The snow melted. Crocuses …
opinion
A cow moose was spotted Tuesday morning on the second level of the Rouse Avenue parking garage in downtown Bozeman, where she remained for approximately forty-five minutes before exiting via the …
local
A third self-storage facility is under construction at Four Corners, joining two existing facilities in what is rapidly becoming the Gallatin Valley’s most concentrated repository of things …
local
You know who you are. You’ve got the guitar strapped to your pack. You’re sitting on a rock at the Drinking Horse trailhead. You’re playing Wagon Wheel. You’re playing it in a …
opinion
The first orange cones of the 2026 season appeared on North 7th Avenue early Monday morning, confirming what Bozeman residents have long suspected: construction season is not a period of time but a …
local
For years, a ring of unincorporated land surrounding Belgrade — known locally and bureaucratically as the “Belgrade Donut” — has existed in a jurisdictional twilight zone where development …
investigative
Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality and Fish, Wildlife & Parks jointly released updated PFAS advisories this week recommending that anglers limit consumption of fish from certain …
local
A new lift station connecting the Riverside community’s wastewater to the Bozeman treatment plant went online this week, a development that officials called “a milestone for regional …
local
An 18-year-old student pilot safely landed a Cessna 172 in a field south of Helena Tuesday after her engine failed at 4,500 feet, an act of extraordinary composure that was briefly the lead story on …
local
Montana State University’s spring career fair drew 1,200 students and 85 employers to the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse Wednesday, where the most frequently asked question was “Do you have …
campus
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has proposed closing the East Gallatin River to fishing from boats, a move that has divided the angling community into two camps: those who fish from boats and are …
local
I moved to Bozeman from Denver in 2024 for the quality of life, the mountain access, the tight-knit community, and the sense that this place was still real in a way that bigger cities had stopped …
opinion
Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced Thursday that he is invoking supervisory control over the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office, a move that county residents greeted with a mixture of …
local
A new Community Wishing Tree appeared Wednesday along the North 19th corridor, installed by the local non-profit Random Acts of Silliness, and within hours the tree’s paper wish tags revealed a …
local
The 2026 Gallatin Valley Housing Report, released Wednesday to a packed room of real estate professionals and a general public that could not attend because they were at work at their second jobs, …
local
The Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University has released its May programming schedule, which includes 14 events, 9 of which involve dinosaurs, 3 of which involve dinosaurs and wine, and 2 of …
campus
More than 700 Belgrade residents have signed a petition opposing the city’s proposed roundabout at Broadway and Main, making it the largest organized civic action in Belgrade since the 2019 …
local
I have driven through Belgrade’s four-way stop at Broadway and Main approximately 11,000 times in my life, and not once has it required a circular intervention imported from Europe. A four-way …
opinion
Tenants at two Bozeman-area mobile home parks have announced Montana’s first rent strike in over fifty years, citing rent increases they describe as “aggressive,” …
local
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks issued a winter safety advisory Tuesday reminding residents that backcountry conditions remain “extremely hazardous” across the state’s mountain …
local
A Bozeman manufacturing company announced Tuesday it will build a new facility and create 50 jobs, which economists estimate will allow the residents of approximately one local apartment to …
local
The University of Montana announced this week it will eliminate its master’s programs in both literature and economics, ensuring that future graduates will understand neither the human condition …
campus
Hosts at a Roundup radio station have begun reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each broadcast, a move they describe as “a simple gesture” and Arbitron describes as …
local
Montana’s unemployment rate rose to 3.4 percent in December, up from 3.1 percent the previous month, according to figures released Tuesday by the governor’s office. The uptick was …
local
The MT64 Hockey Association’s inaugural Ladies’ Hockey Night at the Marty Pavelich Ice Rink drew nine participants Sunday evening, a number that organizers described as “exceeding …
local
You know who you are. You pull past the spot, stop traffic, and then spend forty-five seconds reversing into a space that you could have pulled into face-first in three. You do this because you …
opinion
The process of naming Downtown Bozeman’s new Peace Park has, ironically, generated what attendees describe as “the opposite of peace” at three consecutive city meetings. The park, …
local
Montana’s first confirmed case of avian influenza in 2026 has been identified in a backyard chicken flock in Carbon County, according to the state Department of Livestock, raising alarm among …
local
A new report from Explore Big Sky suggests that Montana’s long-running debate over wolf management may not be as bitterly divided as previously assumed, with ranchers and conservationists …
local
Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer issued a public letter Monday warning residents of a “dangerous trend in public activity,” a phrase he declined to elaborate on despite seventeen …
local
A lawsuit filed this week against Montana’s 2025 property tax overhaul has achieved something previously thought impossible in state politics: it has united a rancher from Roundup, a retired …
local
Local food writer and self-described “appetizer futurist” Connie Bridges has declared polenta tots the “only Super Bowl snack that matters,” despite having never watched a …
local
A new report from the Montana Office of Tourism and Business Development has confirmed a trend visible to anyone who has stood in line at a Bozeman coffee shop recently: the state’s tourists are …
local
Six weeks after a December windstorm ripped sections of roof off the Park City school gymnasium, the Panthers’ basketball and volleyball teams still have nowhere to play home games. So …
local
New data released this week confirms what most Bozeman parents already suspected: the cost of childcare in the Gallatin Valley now exceeds federal affordability guidelines by a margin that one …
local
The speed limit on North 19th Avenue is 35 miles per hour. I know this because I read the sign. It is a white sign with black numbers. It is not ambiguous. It does not say “35 or whatever feels …
opinion
POLSON — Two dogs were pulled from the icy waters of Flathead Lake Monday morning after venturing onto thin ice and falling through, prompting a multi-agency rescue effort that lasted approximately 40 …
local
A growing crisis in the Montana outdoor photography community has reached what experts are calling “an epistemological tipping point,” as artificial intelligence image generators become …
local
BROADVIEW — Approximately 130 residents packed the Broadview Senior Center on Monday night to voice concerns about a proposed data center, in what may be the most people inside that building since the …
investigative
A Montana Supreme Court justice quietly paid a fine for a misdemeanor traffic violation this week, triggering what legal scholars are calling the state’s first “institutional irony …
local
The Bear Canyon bridge on Interstate 90, closed since last Wednesday after a semi hauling an excavator collided with the overpass, will reportedly remain impassable until April, according to the …
local
The WinCo parking lot has become a lawless frontier. Not because of crime — because of shopping carts. Abandoned shopping carts rolling freely across the asphalt like tumbleweeds in a western nobody …
opinion
A 400-pound grizzly bear was observed entering the Bozeman Costco on North 19th Avenue Saturday morning, pausing briefly at the membership desk before proceeding directly to the seafood section. …
local
Montana State University announced Tuesday the formation of a new interdepartmental task force to investigate the rising costs of university-commissioned research, a study that will itself cost an …
campus
My wife asked me to try oat milk. I said fine. I’m a reasonable man. It is not milk. I don’t mean that politically. I mean I poured it into my coffee and the coffee turned a color …
opinion
There is no such thing as a quick trip to Costco. It has never existed. Every person who has ever said “I’m just running to Costco real quick” has returned ninety minutes later with …
opinion
You go in. You go around. You come out. That’s the whole thing. And yet every single day I watch someone stop inside the roundabout. Inside it. As if the concept of yielding to the left has …
opinion
A single parking space on West Main Street has been listed for sale at $375,000, marking what local real estate analysts are calling “a new milestone in Bozeman’s ongoing relationship with …
local
For eight months of the year, North 7th Avenue is a pulsating artery of orange traffic cones, lane closures, and the quiet, simmering rage of 14,000 daily commuters. Then, sometime around November, …
investigative
Editor’s note: The following was submitted unsolicited to our offices in a hand-addressed envelope. We are printing it in full. I have been going to the same deli for seven years. Every …
opinion