‘Yellowstone’ Popularity Brings Challenges to Montana, Bozeman Police Chief Says

The popularity of Paramount Network’s Yellowstone has brought some trouble to Bozeman, Montana, according to police chief Jim Velkamp .

According to Velkamp, the town has struggled to keep up with the influx of tourists pouring in due to the popularity of Yellowstone .

“Everyone seems to have this view [that] Bozeman is changing more rapidly than they’d like,” Velkamp told The Daily Mail on Friday, August 9, claiming that the city has struggled to keep up with the influx of tourists and new residents alike.

“I think overall for us, specifically with the city of Bozeman, it’s just the growth and the challenges related to growth, that is our biggest challenge,” he said on Friday. “Our city has grown so fast. Bozeman wasn’t literally on the map; now it’s a well-known place.”

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Velkmap also attributes Bozeman’s population boom to the rise of remote work since COVID-19, but he noted that crime rates are “going up fast” as the population increases. However, he said that longtime residents are, for the most part, complaining about there being more drivers on the road.

“They can’t see the increased human trafficking going on in town,” he told the Daily Mail . “A lot of them don’t see the increased fentanyl available in town. But they do see people running red lights, so that becomes their biggest issue.”

Velkamp added that he “can’t blame one single factor” on the recent issues in Bozeman. “I certainly can’t attribute it all to the show Yellowstone, but we hear it routinely,” he continued. “People say, ‘Oh, Bozeman, I’ve watched Yellowstone .’ We even hear it from candidates for the police department. They looked up Bozeman after watching the show Yellowstone and thought, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty cool place,’ and so they inquire about working here.”

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While an increased population will often bring an increase in crime, a 2022 study conducted by the University of Montana found that Yellowstone , which is filmed in and around the Bozeman area, created hundreds of jobs and brought in over $70 million to the state of Montana in additional spending.

Created by Taylor Sheridan , Yellowstone stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton, the patriarch of a powerful family of ranchers in Montana. The first half of the series’ fifth and final season concluded in January 2023, with the final episodes set to premiere on Sunday, November 10. Costner, 69, will not be part of the new episodes following his exit from the series last year.