A Whole Town Near Yellowstone Is For Sale For Less Than $3 Million

Yellowstone National Park has just one entrance that’s open year-round, the North Entrance.

That makes real estate in the surrounding area particularly choice, given that people can just drive into the park all year long. 

Now just think about owning an entire town near it with convenient access to one of the most popular parks in the nation. Yellowstone was the fourth most-visited national park in 2023, with 4.5 million visitors. 

That opportunity has recently become available. The charming and historic Mountain West town of Pray, Montana, located in the heart of Paradise Valley, just 45 minutes from Yellowstone National Park’s north entrance, has just been listed for sale for $2.6 million.

It’s a little slice of the scenic Paradise Valley, nestled between the Absaroka and Gallatin mountain ranges, with its own 100-year-old general store that continues to operate to this day. Pray has its own ZIP Code, and its own post office. 

The property already generates rental income. That was $300,000-plus in 2023 — a figure that’s projected to rise in 2024, according to the property’s listing agent, Mike Rutkowski, a real estate agent with eXp Realty. He is also the tenant of the General Store.

The rental income comes from five housing units on site, including three Amish-built cabins. 

“They were built by Mill Canyon Log Homes in Idaho,” Rutkowski said. “And they’re awesome. Everyone who’s seen them is like, ‘These are amazing.’ They are, I think, like 10-inch logs, Swedish cope, so they are just like beautiful.”

Swedish cope refers to hand-peeled logs cut with a half-moon shaped groove, so the logs will fit on top of each other snugly. The construction technique makes exceptionally strong, energy-efficient homes with a rustic look.

“There’s a big 5-acre field out back, which has a design for eight to nine cabins, currently,” Rutkowski said. “So hopefully that grows the town itself. But, based on what the owners want to do, they could … just build some really nice luxury homes for half a million. It’s all up to them.”

High Traffic Stats Give Town Lots Of Business Options

The post office and the general store are still a gathering place, Rutkowski said, and the area already has lots of traffic going by daily on its way into Yellowstone National Park.

“This area has very high net worth individuals,” Rutkowski told Cowboy State Daily. “So, the houses are kind of sparse, but they’re ginormous. They’re huge houses.”

The surrounding area also has houses from the “old Montana” before things “blew up,” he added.

“There is one across the street next door,” Rutkowski said. “They’re slowly getting replaced by these huge mansions everywhere, but this would be ideal to conserve this little epicenter of Old West. And there’s, across the street, some old houses that are log, original, and then there’s the Pray Bar next door. So, these are all perfect for preserving.”

Many of the inquiries Rutkowski has been fielding have asked about turning Pray into a tourist town, he added.

“It’s a lot of work, but I mean, it’s epic,” he said. “The traffic I want to say is 400,000 people a year on Highway 89. So, if we can siphon off some of that traffic, we would be very busy.”

Pray also isn’t the only attraction on the way to Yellowstone, Rutkowski added.

“There’s Pine Creek Lodge, there’s Chico (Hot Springs), which everybody knows Chico, and there’s Yellowstone Hot Springs down further,” he said. “There’s Sage Lodge, which is like a five-star luxury resort that just got built a few years ago. I think Pray is more for the locals than tourists, but tourists would come here, for sure.”

Pray is also not far away from Yellowstone Film Ranch, set up as a fully functional, 1880s-style, western gold-rush town for filmmakers.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Pray is well-situated for other adventures besides Yellowstone, as it’s a comfortable driving distance away from Livingston (27 minutes) and Bozeman, Montana, (48 minutes). Bozeman is considered a gateway to adventures in either the Bridger Mountains to the north or the Spanish Peaks to the south.

Or the new owner could just relax into the adventure of rich history that Pray, Montana, itself offers. The town was established at the turn of the century in 1907 and was named after early Montana Congressman Charles Nelson Pray.

“They used to weigh their babies on the meat scale in the General store in the early 1900s,” Rutkowski said. “So, it’s very historic. And it was the original post office, which is still in there.”

Rutkowski hopes to convert the mail room in the store to a music room for visitors to enjoy music, as well as a kid center with books and toys, so that parents can let children play while they browse the general store. A food truck is also part of Rutkowski’s vision for the place, but, he added, it all depends on what the new owner wants to do.

The site isn’t listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so there are no particular preservation requirements. The new owner could do anything they want with any of the structures on the property, including tear them down if they wished. 

“It’s really up to whatever they want to do,” he said. “There’s no zoning out there either.”

Some of the buildings that come with the property do need some TLC, Rutkowski said, including the General Store which he said needs a new roof.

 “Most of the people I’ve been talking to about the property are not looking to tear this down, though,” he added. “Most of them want to know about, like, ‘What’s it going to cost to fix this? How can we fix it?’ The conversations never go like, ‘Oh, let’s just tear it down and start fresh.’” 

That has Rutkowski hopeful that there’s a brighter future ahead for Pray, Montana, a town that’s not just a blank slate, but ideally situated in a little slice of a valley they already call Paradise.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.