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17 articles
Montana's mobile library programs log tens of thousands of miles each year to reach communities where physical library branches have never existed and internet access remains inconsistent. A closer look at these routes reveals both the remarkable reach of dedicated staff and the fragile funding structures that could bring the whole system to a halt.
Across Montana's most remote counties, large animal veterinarians are retiring faster than replacements can be found, leaving ranchers to manage emergencies alone or drive extraordinary distances for basic care. The shortage is quietly threatening the economic foundation of communities built on livestock agriculture. Montana's News examines the practitioners still fighting to hold the line.
Montana's rural fire protection depends overwhelmingly on unpaid volunteers, but those volunteer rosters are thinning as economic pressures force residents to work longer hours or leave small towns entirely. An investigation by Montana's News reveals a system strained to the breaking point — underfunded, understaffed, and increasingly unable to guarantee a response when it matters most.
Across Montana, high school graduation season doubles as a quiet goodbye. Young people leave for universities, cities, and opportunities that their hometowns cannot provide—and most do not return. An investigation into the forces driving youth migration reveals a state grappling with its own future, and a handful of communities refusing to accept that the departure of their young is inevitable.
Scattered across Montana's backcountry, dozens of historic Forest Service cabins built during the New Deal era are quietly rotting away under decades of deferred maintenance and shrinking federal budgets. Volunteers, preservationists, and rural communities are mounting an urgent effort to document and restore what remains before the wilderness reclaims them entirely. What these structures represent—and what disappears when they do—goes far beyond architecture.
Glacier National Park's remaining glaciers are disappearing at a rate that has alarmed scientists and quietly unsettled the communities built around them. From ranchers who depend on snowmelt-fed streams to tribal nations with generational ties to the land, Montanans are beginning to reckon with what it means to lose the ice that defines their home. This is a story about a transformation already underway — and the people trying to make sense of it.
Across Montana's most remote corners, the local post office has outlasted the grocery store, the bank, and sometimes even the school. Now, federal consolidation efforts are threatening to extinguish the last institutional heartbeat of dozens of small communities — and the people who depend on them are fighting back.
For thousands of years, pronghorn antelope have traced the same invisible highways across Montana's open plains — routes encoded in instinct long before the first fence post was ever driven. Now, a convergence of expanding ranch infrastructure, subdivision sprawl, and highway construction is severing those corridors mile by mile, and the window to act may be narrowing faster than anyone expected.
Montana consistently ranks among the worst states in the nation for suicide rates, yet the infrastructure meant to prevent those deaths is crumbling. Psychiatric beds have disappeared, community mental health centers cannot retain staff, and rural residents often wait months for a single counseling appointment. An investigation into how the system broke down — and who is paying the price.
On Montana's reservations, a growing corps of tribal wildlife officers is quietly reshaping the landscape of conservation authority. These wardens enforce hunting and fishing rights guaranteed by treaties that predate Montana statehood, often navigating complicated jurisdictional friction with state and federal agencies. Their work is as much about restoring a sovereign relationship with the land as it is about enforcing the law.
Hundreds of miles of decommissioned railroad track lie dormant across Montana, threading through small towns and open rangeland alike. Now, a growing coalition of developers, preservationists, and local officials are locked in a fierce dispute over whether these forgotten corridors should carry freight again, become recreational trails, or serve as highways for broadband cable. The outcome could reshape rural Montana for generations.
In communities stretched across millions of acres of Montana's high plains and mountain valleys, the absence of reliable broadband has become something far more serious than a frustration — it is an economic and social emergency. From ranchers navigating federal tax systems by satellite dish to teenagers completing homework in fast-food parking lots, the state's connectivity crisis is accelerating population decline and stalling local economies. Montana's News examines why years of federal fundi
For more than a century, solitary watchmen perched atop Montana's mountain summits have served as the state's earliest warning system against catastrophic wildfire. Now, tightening federal budgets and the rise of drone surveillance are threatening to silence those towers for good — and the veterans who staffed them say the loss runs far deeper than a line item on a balance sheet.
A surge in global demand for electric vehicle batteries has turned Montana's remote lithium deposits into some of the most coveted real estate in North America. But as mining companies stake their claims across the state, communities, tribal nations, and environmental advocates are asking a hard question: can Montana afford to repeat the mistakes of its mining past?
Across Montana's vast stretches of open land, a quiet healthcare emergency is unfolding — one measured not in headlines but in miles. Some residents face drives exceeding 100 miles to reach an emergency room, and several critical access hospitals are teetering on the edge of closure. State lawmakers and local advocates are racing to find solutions before the next crisis becomes a tragedy.
In some of Montana's most sparsely populated counties, casting a ballot requires overcoming distances, weather conditions, and logistical obstacles that most Americans will never encounter. Election administrators and tribal community members are sounding the alarm about a democratic infrastructure under quiet but serious pressure. An investigation by Montana's News examines the human effort — and the political debates — behind keeping every vote accessible across the nation's fourth-largest sta
As drought tightens its grip on Montana and cities continue to grow, a collision of competing water claims is reshaping the state's future. Ranchers, tribal nations, and expanding municipalities are locked in a struggle that legal experts warn could define Montana's next generation of policy. The stakes, measured in acre-feet and livelihoods, have never been higher.