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High housing costs profoundly impact residents, school system in Yellowstone gateway town

Bozeman, Mont. • Ashea Mills was going to college in upstate New York when she saw an ad in a local paper for seasonal work in Yellowstone National Park.

She'd gone through a rough time in her life after the death of a partner who had leukemia, and the opportunity seemed like a great way to get out and try something new. So she quit her job, dropped out of college and moved out west.

The park’s landscape changed her in ways she didn’t expect, she said. Mills left Yellowstone five years later to go back to school, but she came back soon after and settled in Gardiner.