Many of us have gotten accustomed to watching the television series “Yellowstone” in recent years.  While that series takes place in Montana, a county in Wyoming that borders Idaho and Montana contains 40% of Yellowstone National Park’s total area.  Teton County of Wyoming, also “had the highest average incomes per capita of any county in the United States, at $252,000″ in 2019 according to this listing from Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia article also makes these comments:

• “As of the fourth quarter of 2021, the median home price in Teton County was $1,060,093, an increase of 17.8% from the prior year.”
• “It is estimated that as of 2023 Teton County had a population of 23,232”

The City of Jackson and the Jackson Hole ski area are both within the confines of Teton County. . . a county that one would have to describe as “remote”.

It’s with that background that I recently read this article from the Jackson Hole News & Guide titled “Funeral home fights for its life“.  The article deals with Jackson’s only mortuary and their apparent struggles with profitability.

Related — Here is the website for Grand Teton Funeral Home and Cremation of Jackson, Wyoming.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  Funeral Director Daily has authored similar stories of issues for funeral homes in remote locations.  For instance, here is a story of similar issues from the Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, geographic area.  We’ve also done stories of funeral homes exiting high-priced urban areas, such as San Francisco, because of the cost of real estate.  In those cases, however, there are suburban funeral homes within a short distance to pick up the business.

In the cases of Prince Rupert and Teton County funeral home help is probably at least one hour away.  And, that causes a problem when town folk have a death in the family.

You can read the article on the Jackson funeral home and its issues.  However, one thing I wonder about is the idea of numbers of deaths in Teton County.  From this graph you can see that the United States had about 8.5 deaths per 1,000 population prior to the pandemic in 2019.  Teton County, with a population of 23,000 should see a total number of deaths, according to that statistic, of about 195 annually.  Yet if you take a look at the funeral home’s website and its current obituaries you will notice only 3 obituaries for the first two months of 2025.

While I have no answers one has to wonder if there is more to the story?  Is the population of Teton County very young? . . . .Does the wealthy citizen population have 2nd homes in areas that they move to when their health is failing?

In any regards I found this an interesting story and an issue those of us in more urban geographic areas don’t even know exists among our colleagues.

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Statistics tell us that over 80% of Americans live within one hour of an urban area.  If the population of the USA is about 333 million then that leaves the other 20%, or almost 67 million people outside of those urban areas.  I’m one of those 67 million and I love where I live, but as this article and news video from Montana’s KTVQ points out,  sometimes there are inconveniences that happen because of the lack of urbanization in our communities.

The article points out that many funeral directors in Montana have an access problem in what we in the profession would call “Human remains air transportation”.  While it appears, according to the article, that human remains can be flown in when plane size and a trained staff is there to meet the plane, it also appears that having human remains leave the state by common aircraft carrier is a major problem.

At Billings, Montana’s Logan International Airport, according to the article, Manager Jeff Roach says there are a couple of problems –one of which is that the airport cannot transport human remains due to a lack of trained personnel and infrastructure. It appears that while remains cannot be flown out on common carrier, they can be brought in by plane.  Here’s what Roach says about that issue in the article, “When human remains come inbound, it’s much easier for them to have somebody arranged to pick those up. Whereas outbound, they need to have a place where they can safely hold the human remains until the flight departs.”

In addition, the size of the aircraft used is also a problem.  On that issue Roach says this, “It really needs to be on a mainline aircraft like a 737 or an A320 that has the cargo space in order to actually facilitate that. That’s a part of that whole equation that the air carriers also have to take into consideration.”

According to the article, some funeral directors in Montana have had to drive as far as Denver, Salt Lake City, or Fargo, North Dakota, to place human remains for air transportation.

Funeral Director Daily take:  On one issue it is probably the business law of “supply and demand” causing some of the problem.  That issue is the size of plane an airline flies in and out of Montana airports.  From my point of view, such as when I fly out of Fargo, North Dakota, most of the planes are the 30 to 50 seat varieties.  There just is not enough demand to fly in the larger planes such as the 737 or A320 which have, depending on configuration, between 150-200 seats. . . .and ample cargo room for human remains.

Smaller passenger travel airports are subsidized by the United States Essential Air Service mandate and that mandate dictates that the United States Transportation Department “subsidizes commuter and certificated air carriers to serve approximately 60 communities in Alaska and 115 communities in the lower 48 contiguous states that otherwise would not receive any scheduled air service”.  There is no mandate on the size of aircraft that will serve these regions.

Billings is not an “Essential Air Service” subsidized airport, but these airports in Montana are:  Butte, Havre, Glasgow, Glendive, Sidney, West Yellowstone, and Wolf Point.

The other issue mentioned by the airport manager, that of secured space for the holding of human remains, should find a solution if the funeral directors association, the airport, and the common carriers can determine the type of facility necessary and the cost sharing to staff such a facility.

Related —  The Essential Air Service mandate

Related —  United States Essential Air Service airport list

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