17,477 Bobcats, and your rent
Morning. It is going to hit 81 today, a last loud hurrah before Saturday knocks it back to the 60s, so run your errands in a t-shirt while you can. Up top, MSU set another enrollment record, and we do the math on what 17,477 Bobcats mean for the rest of us. Then a new westside trail, a solved county accounting mystery, and a fairy village closing up shop. Coffee is on.
MSU set another record, and the whole valley feels it.
Montana State enrolled 17,477 students this fall, an all-time high and a 1.8% bump over last year, with the largest first-year class in school history at 3,970, edging out the mark set in 2021. Undergrad enrollment hit 15,431, and MSU still enrolls more Montanans than any school in the state, 8,735 of them, up 216 from a year ago.
The number is the story, because everything downstream of it is the town you actually live in. Another record class means more leases signed in August, more cars turning left onto 19th at 8 a.m., and more people chasing the same short supply of rentals. President Brock Tessman framed the university's job as keeping "our doors wide open" so "every student who chooses to walk through them has the support to succeed." Absorbing all of them is the valley's job, not the school's.
None of this is a surprise. MSU has broken its own enrollment record most falls for a decade, and Bozeman's rent has climbed right alongside it. What is worth watching is the gap between how fast the school grows and how fast the town builds. Enrollment went up again this fall. Whether housing kept pace is the question your next lease will answer.
With no commission meeting this week, the city's freshest move is a trail.
The commission just adopted the Cattail Creek Corridor master plan, a 3.5-mile north-south path across the west side, running from East Valley Center Road down to the Gallatin Valley Mall. The city estimates about 20% of Bozemanites live within a half-mile of the route. Mayor Joey Morrison pitched it as a westside answer to the Gallagator, a connection for "biking, walking, and recreating," with a dog park, better crossings, and a mix of paved and gravel. The first stretch runs through West Winds, and building could start as early as 2027 and wrap by 2030.
Want a say in a longer game? The library is gathering public input on its future, a possible branch included, at two drop-in sessions the first weekend of October (Saturday the 3rd downtown, Sunday the 4th at KidsFEST in Gallatin Regional Park). The next commission meeting is Oct. 6.
Gallatin County solved a $568,570 mystery, and it turned out to be a math error, not a missing pile of cash. A 2019 software switch had been over-counting interest earnings for years, so commissioners knocked $568,070 off the county's payment-in-lieu-of-taxes fund (federal money for untaxable public land), dropping it from about $2.7 million to $2.3 million. Local resident Joshua Tuininga's 71-page dig through county finances helped surface it. Commissioner Jennifer Boyer called it "a pretty significant finding."
The left turn out of Elk Grove onto Highway 191 is bad enough that the state is studying a traffic signal for the Violet Road intersection. Fiona Whalen, who runs Bozeman Knife Sharpening and Supply nearby, says she has timed her 5 p.m. left turn at 16 minutes. MDT says the light is still under review with no timeline yet, but the roughly 300 homes back there would take it.
Your power bill has a big decision behind it. The Public Service Commission cleared its newest member to help decide NorthWestern Energy's proposed $15.4 billion merger with Black Hills Corp, the kind of deal that reshapes who regulates the utility most of Montana, Bozeman included, buys power from. A ruling is due by Oct. 12.
On a cheerier note, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library has now mailed 166,090 free books to Gallatin County kids over six years, one a month from birth to age five, no cost to families. A rare local number that only goes up.
Friday shows off at 81 before the season remembers itself. Mostly sunny and 65 Saturday, 66 Sunday, so the parade crowd may want a jacket by kickoff. Bank the warm one.
Friday (Sept. 25):
Homecoming week peaks tonight with the MSU pep rally at Main and Willson, 6 p.m. and free, the annual downtown mix of pep band and students acting like they founded the place.
Friday (Sept. 25): Rather read than rally? Tinworks hosts its second annual Poetry and Songwriting Slam, 7 to 10 p.m., free.
Saturday (Sept. 26): The homecoming parade rolls up Main at 10 a.m., and the Bobcats host Northern Arizona at 8:30 p.m. on ESPN2. Expect a few blocks closed downtown and gold everywhere in between.
Saturday (Sept. 26): Or trade football for lederhosen at gute Laune's Oktoberfest, 4 to 11 p.m. downtown, pig roast and beer tickets included.
Sunday (Sept. 27): Hockey is back. The Bozeman Icedogs host the Yellowstone Quake at 7:35 p.m. (tickets $10 to $15), a cheap and loud way to feel the season turn.
The Gallatin has settled into fall shape. As of Wednesday afternoon it was running about 386 cfs near Gallatin Gateway and 508 at Logan, both easing lower as the valley dries out. Local shops report gin-clear water and base-level canyon flows, with cooler temperatures nudging trout out of the fast riffles into slower, deeper runs and the best fishing landing in the middle of the day. With Friday warm and the water low and clear, it is a fine last-call weekend to wade before it really turns.
The fairies are packing up.
Bumblewood Thicket, the pop-up fairy village at Glen Lake Rotary Park, closes Monday (Sept. 28) at 3 p.m. after drawing more than 11,000 visitors to its 21 tiny homes and storefronts. It is free, it is run by a local outfit literally called Random Acts of Silliness, and this is the last weekend to catch it before the little doors shut for the year. Bring a kid, or don't. No one is checking.