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, the cones vanish — and nobody knows where they go.

The Bozeman Daily Bee spent three weeks investigating.

“We don’t track individual cones,” said Bozeman Public Works spokesperson Carl Redmond when reached for comment. When pressed on whether the city tracks cones collectively, Redmond paused for eleven seconds before saying, “I’m going to transfer you.”

He did not transfer us. The line went dead.

According to public records obtained through a Freedom of Information request, the City of Bozeman purchased 4,200 traffic cones in fiscal year 2025. A follow-up request for records indicating where those cones are currently stored was denied on the grounds that cone storage locations constitute “critical infrastructure information.”

“That’s a new one,” said Marcy Steinfeld, a government transparency advocate based in Helena. “I’ve seen FOIA denials for all sorts of things — law enforcement records, personnel files — but never for the location of cones. It’s either deeply suspicious or deeply boring. In my experience, those are often the same thing.”

The Bee dispatched reporter Chuck Troutman to physically follow a cone removal crew in early November. Troutman reported that the crew loaded approximately 300 cones into an unmarked truck, drove north on Interstate 90, and exited at the Belgrade interchange. After that, and we quote Troutman’s field notes directly: “Lost them. Truck turned onto a dirt road. My Subaru couldn’t keep up. Started snowing. Came home.”

Local theories about the cones’ winter whereabouts range from the mundane (a city storage facility near the wastewater treatment plant) to the speculative (a vast underground cone repository beneath the Gallatin County Fairgrounds) to the conspiratorial (they are melted down and reconstituted each spring, which would explain why they always look slightly different).

“I swear they’re a different shade of orange every year,” said North 7th resident Patty Olsen, 58. “In 2023 they were more of a tangerine. Last year was more traffic-pumpkin. It’s subtle, but I notice.”

This is an ongoing investigation. The Bee will continue to follow the cones. If you have information about cone storage locations, please contact our tip line. It’s not a real tip line — it’s just Chuck Troutman’s satellite phone — but he checks it when he has service, which is occasionally.

This story was produced with support from the Bee Investigative Fund, which has a current balance of $0.00.