The listing was up for 41 minutes. Ninety-eight acres outside Bozeman, a working cattle operation since 1912, asking $14.2M. It sold, sight unseen, to a Delaware LLC. The wire cleared before the ink was dry.
Locals in Gallatin County have watched this movie for six years now. Since Yellowstone premiered in 2018, ranch land in a 200-mile radius of Bozeman is up 340%. In some sub-markets — the ones with big-sky views and cell service — it's up more.
"They don't run cattle. They don't hire local. They fly in for a weekend in June and their trucks have Wyoming plates," said one third-generation rancher who asked us not to use his name. "They call themselves cowboys. They are landlords."
We tracked ownership on 27 recent purchases over $5M. Nineteen trace back to fewer than a dozen LPs. Two of those LPs share a mailing address in Palm Beach.
This is not the end of the West. But it is the end of a version of it.
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