Comet is a wonderful, genuine ghost town, the third best in Montana, after Bannack and Garnet. It features more than three dozen wooden buildings, including a huge mill, a two-story mill-workers’ and miners’ dormitory, and numerous wood or log cabins.
Comet came to life in 1883, nine years after silver ore was located in the area but not substantially developed. The town of Wickes, four miles north, smelted the Comet Mine’s ore by way of a tramway. Its most prosperous days were during the 1880s, when the town could boast of a population of three hundred, but the Silver Crash hit hard in 1893 and it was deserted by the end of World War I.
It was not deserted for long. A second mining operation began in the 1920s; a new mill, the one still standing at Comet, was built in 1926, and the population returned to its pre-1893 level. That prosperity ended with the beginning of World War II. Many mines in the American West, such as Comet, never reopened after World War II because an industrial surge for consumer goods offered jobs in manufacturing that paid better wages and were far less dangerous than mining. Eventually, more restrictive mine safety standards made reopening old mines prohibitively expensive.
Comet’s boardinghouse is one of the few two-story structures in residential Comet. As you can see, it badly needs restoration or at least propping up.
Here is an excellent example of ghost town safety: Do not attempt to climb the stairs of the Comet boardinghouse or you might be the last person who does.
A nearby forest fire gave Comet’s mill, dormitory, and stack an eerie glow in this early morning photograph.
Unlike the pickup in Belmont, Nevada (see photo, page 8), this Chevrolet in Comet is well past restoration. Behind stand miners’ cabins in various states of decay.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND COMET
Your first glimpse of Comet will be of two ore chutes on your left as you approach the site. You then round a corner, and Comet stands in a panorama before you. Across the draw to the east is the Comet Mine’s last mill and its two-story dormitory, both clad in tin sheets. The mill’s tailings were removed in 2000 as an environmental hazard, so the mill stands there in an eerie parklike setting.
To your immediate left are the general store, several residences, a two-story boardinghouse, and many mine-related structures. Up on the hill behind these buildings are at least a dozen miners’ shacks, standing in various states of decay. Amid them is an occupied residence, and I, for one, am very glad they are there. I was watched each time I have been to Comet; with that vigilance, Comet should last much longer than if it were abandoned. But what Comet really needs is to be purchased and protected by the State of Montana.
WHEN YOU GO
From Basin, take Interstate 15 east 3.2 miles to Exit 160, High Ore Road. Follow High Ore Road over the Boulder River, cross a cattle guard, and head north for 4.5 miles to Comet.