Montana has a history as a sometimes brutal exurb of capitalism, with tensions between rich and poor and labor and capital a theme since the 1800s. Over the last decade, people with Yellowstone Club-size wallets bought vast swaths of land, spurring the leisure economy at the same time that wage stagnation  Montana sank to 39th in the nation in median family income, according to the most recent Census figures  took hold of much of the rest of the state’s population.

Image Marne Hayes, executive director of the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce, said Montanas seasonal economy had always been tough. Credit... Janie Osborne for The New York Times

Some residents, in interviews here and in Bozeman, an hour north of Big Sky, said they were not particularly upset about the club’s plight, given its excesses and presumptions.

But most people also know someone whose fortunes are tied to the financial engines that made this corner of Montana’s economy go in recent years  wealth, vacation housing and tourism.

“It’s kind of like a double-edged sword for a lot of people around here,” said Greg Thomas, a 31-year-old construction worker from Bozeman. “It’s pretty grotesque and ridiculous, but at the same time, a lot of people depend on going up there for jobs.”

Bill Hopkins was more to the point.

“I can kind of gloat on one hand, but I’m not really happy about it,” said Mr. Hopkins, 51, who works at Yellowstone National Park, just south of here, coordinating volunteer trail maintenance crews. Mr. Hopkins said he disliked the club’s environmental footprint  13,500 acres of formerly pristine open-space backcountry, now sealed off and built on.

“The damage has been done, as far as development there,” he said, “so as long as it’s developed, I’d just as soon see it operational.”