Coming of Age in Comet

I am not sure that I could call myself a "history buff", but I do enjoy visiting historical places. Where I grew up in Michigan's "Tip of the Mitten" country, I had ready access to the pre-Revolutionary forts along the Straits of Mackinaw and Mackinaw Island. There were also plenty of little remaining pockets of remnants from the early lumbering and railroading days of America's infancy. 

Then last year, I was privileged to travel to Lisbon and Barcelona and visit what might be considered the place where America (as we know it) was conceived. 

For the last twenty-five years, though, I have called Montana home. With its legendary "wild and unruly" era, I tend to think of this period as America's adolescence. I love visiting Montana's ghost towns! We have been to Garnet and Granite, Colomo and Castle, Elkhorn, Bannack, Virginia City... well, you get the picture. 

On a recent camping trip, we added Comet to the list. While the town is located on private property, and access is limited, it is still easy to "explore" from the main road. With very little traffic on the road during the afternoon that we were there, it wasn't hard to imagine it as a bustling mining town. I could "hear" the pounding of the stamp mill, the honkey-tonk piano and brawling miners spilling out of the saloon, and I think I might have even heard a gun shot or two. ;)

I wasn't able to find much information on the town in its heyday, but that's okay. It means that I can interpret the photos anyway I want. (And so can you!)

PS. If you also enjoy ghost towns, you might want to check out Ghost Towns of Montana and Beyond, a magazine and Facebook page edited by Jolene Ewert-Hintz.