I haven't really posted much here, but I figured if I'm moving to the region I might as well show what I've been up to for the last year and and half up in Montana. Exploring solo in Montana was unlike any other kind of exploring I've experienced- long hours crossing hundreds upon hundreds of miles of empty highway interspersed with fighting the wheel through blizzards, navigating icy mountain passes after dark, and struggling with tire chains on distant backroads no sane person would try to take a sedan on. Instead of approaching stealthily I often played loud music on my phone to scare off wildlife with a can of bear spray on my hip because grizzlies were far more of a threat than any security guard, and I spent more than my share of subzero nights trying not to freeze as I slept fitfully in the trunk of my car on the side of some deserted rest stop.
But for all the difficulties with winter survival, impassable roads, and extremely remote locations, it was worth every minute. Some of you have seen a few of my historical writeups on UER- but there were a lot more places in Montana besides just those few. As I crisscrossed the state with a camera in hand I began to realize that almost every abandoned building in Montana is connected to the others in some way thanks to the sparse population, and slowly piecing together the puzzle of Montana's ruins was a real treat.
I'll post this one in chronological order of when I explored them so you can follow my journey across Montana with me. I hope you find these places as fascinating as I do. Without further ado, here we go.
Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Montana Safeguard Complex
In the fifties and sixties, the US military began to consider anti-ballistic missile defense systems to defend the Minuteman missile farms of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas against incoming ICBMs and preserve America's ability to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike. Known as Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR) systems or the Safeguard Program, these US Army radar bases would relay information to the NORAD headquarters at the Cheyanne Mountain Complex in Colorado, providing targeting information for nuclear-tipped Spartan, Sprint, or Nike-X antiballistic nuclear missiles. This program was built using some of the technology created for the defunct Sentinel Program, which was intended to be a successor to the Nike Program (but never saw fruition due to intense domestic and international political opposition), and the data collected using high-altitude nuclear tests such as Starfish Prime.
Three of these sites were planned, construction was started on two, and only one ever became operational. The Stanley R Mickelson Safeguard Complex in North Dakota was brought online in April of 1975, and it was perhaps one of the most sophisticated engines of war ever built in its time. Capable of putting over a hundred nuclear surface-to-air missiles into both the atmosphere and orbit in under ninety seconds, the truly impressive part was that each missile was separately guided to an individual target, making each Safeguard site capable of shooting down around 100 incoming ICBMs at once. The Safeguard complex in North Dakota was shut down only a week after reaching full operational capacity and later abandoned, but that is not this location- though this Safeguard complex in Montana would have been identical to the one in North Dakota, had it been completed.
In 1979 America signed the SALT I treaty with the Soviet Union, limiting both nations to one PAR site each. Since the PAR site in Montana was only 10% completed, construction was halted upon the signing of the treaties. All underground structures have since been filled in, but the base of the radar station remains to this day. Surrounded by nothing but miles of flat prairie in all directions, it appears to be a popular party spot for local teens.
And here's a stock picture of the derelict Stanley R Mickelson Safeguard Complex in North Dakota, for comparison of what the complex in Montana would have looked like upon completion.
In the fifties and sixties, the US military began to consider anti-ballistic missile defense systems to defend the Minuteman missile farms of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas against incoming ICBMs and preserve America's ability to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike. Known as Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR) systems or the Safeguard Program, these US Army radar bases would relay information to the NORAD headquarters at the Cheyanne Mountain Complex in Colorado, providing targeting information for nuclear-tipped Spartan, Sprint, or Nike-X antiballistic nuclear missiles. This program was built using some of the technology created for the defunct Sentinel Program, which was intended to be a successor to the Nike Program (but never saw fruition due to intense domestic and international political opposition), and the data collected using high-altitude nuclear tests such as Starfish Prime.
Three of these sites were planned, construction was started on two, and only one ever became operational. The Stanley R Mickelson Safeguard Complex in North Dakota was brought online in April of 1975, and it was perhaps one of the most sophisticated engines of war ever built in its time. Capable of putting over a hundred nuclear surface-to-air missiles into both the atmosphere and orbit in under ninety seconds, the truly impressive part was that each missile was separately guided to an individual target, making each Safeguard site capable of shooting down around 100 incoming ICBMs at once. The Safeguard complex in North Dakota was shut down only a week after reaching full operational capacity and later abandoned, but that is not this location- though this Safeguard complex in Montana would have been identical to the one in North Dakota, had it been completed.
In 1979 America signed the SALT I treaty with the Soviet Union, limiting both nations to one PAR site each. Since the PAR site in Montana was only 10% completed, construction was halted upon the signing of the treaties. All underground structures have since been filled in, but the base of the radar station remains to this day. Surrounded by nothing but miles of flat prairie in all directions, it appears to be a popular party spot for local teens.
- PXL_20211216_000626645.MP.jpg (109.2 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- IMG_5085.jpg (55.92 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- IMG_5076.jpg (72.08 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- IMG_5062.jpg (123.81 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- IMG_5068.jpg (40 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- IMG_5064.jpg (61.59 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- IMG_5057.jpg (63.33 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
- fullsizeoutput_13d1.jpeg (56.92 KiB) Viewed 18849 times
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
That's one gigantic, Ancient Aliens-lookin' radar...Preservation over plunder.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Yeah, Cold War military architecture definitely has some pretty distinctive and odd looking designs to it. I've actually heard this place sometimes called "The Great Pyramid of the Dakotas" because of how it sort of resembles the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. The finished complex in North Dakota is definitely a bucket list exploration of mine, though I think it was recently bought by a crypto-mining venture as a fortified data bunker so it's days as an explorable abandonment might be numbered.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Central Schoolhouse
A one room schoolhouse that predates the county it sits in, built in 1912 to educate the children of farmers who moved to the region after the Homestead Act of 1909 was passed. According to interviews with former students, many of the first children enrolled here didn't survive the harsh winters of the early homesteading years.
Students here were taught from kindergarten to eighth grade before transferring to Conrad High School about 20 miles away to finish their education. The school had a single teacher, but the person filling that role would usually leave for greener pastures every few years, necessitating a replacement. Despite the teacher turnover rate former students of the Central schoolhouse recalled in interviews that they were academically well-prepared, though they felt socially disadvantaged due to the lack of interaction with many children their own age at the schoolhouse- one person interviewed was the only child of his age in the school.
The bell was swiped from the bell tower in the 1960s and the culprit was never found. Over the years the schoolhouse was used as a community meeting place, a church, a recreation hall, a 4-H clubhouse, and a voting center in addition to its use as a school . Central School was shut down in 1970 due to a dwindling population in the surrounding community and a lack of students.
- PXL_20211216_002938817.NIGHT.jpg (75.22 KiB) Viewed 18828 times
- PXL_20211216_003533050.MP.jpg (90.33 KiB) Viewed 18828 times
- PXL_20211216_003550427.jpg (81.57 KiB) Viewed 18828 times
- PXL_20211216_003728184.jpg (73.51 KiB) Viewed 18828 times
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Pigeon Panic Elevator
A random roadside find in northern Montana. I can't find anything online about it and I highly doubt there's any history of note- the only thing of note about this grain elevator was the sheer number of pigeons living inside. There's dozens upon dozens of elevators like this dotting the eastern plains, many of them derelict.
A random roadside find in northern Montana. I can't find anything online about it and I highly doubt there's any history of note- the only thing of note about this grain elevator was the sheer number of pigeons living inside. There's dozens upon dozens of elevators like this dotting the eastern plains, many of them derelict.
- The large flock of pigeons fleeing the top of the elevator inspired the name.
- IMG_5251.jpg (85.94 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- IMG_5244.jpg (50.17 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- The massive amounts of pigeon crap on the ground seems typical for elevators like this, in my experience.
- IMG_5242.jpg (66.97 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- Shelves of jars containing grain samples.
- IMG_5239.jpg (128.94 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- IMG_5235.jpg (79.81 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- IMG_5233.jpg (170.3 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- IMG_5231.jpg (83.5 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
- IMG_5247.jpg (89.6 KiB) Viewed 18815 times
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Burnham Schoolhouse
Originally called Liberty School, this one room schoolhouse was originally built on the north side of the Milk River. At an unspecified point in the early twentieth century it was put on skids and dragged across the ice while the river was frozen over to its current location and its named was changed to Burnham School. The school was nearly lost to the river during the move when an early spring thaw began melting the ice out from under it, but a freeze that solidified the ice saved it.
There were usually about 8-10 students enrolled at the Burnham School. One student, who had to commute via horseback from 4-5 miles away on the opposite side of the river, recalled in an interview that the river crossing could be dangerous in the cold and that he nearly died at least once. He also recalled sleeping overnight in the school many times when lessons ended too late for him to reach home before nightfall.
A small bomb shelter was built behind the school sometime in the mid 1940s due to concerns about Japanese bombers in WWII. Most students were only educated until eighth grade, but those that wished to finish their education transferred to Havre High School upon completing eighth grade at the schoolhouse.
The school was shut down in 1947 for unspecified reasons and was used as a makeshift grain silo. Unfortunately the grain damaged the floors and interior walls. An artist later purchased it to use as a studio, but found that the grain damage was too severe and resold it. Hail and windstorms have also recently damaged it. It remains for sale to this day, though it's too heavily decayed for any buyers to be interested.
Originally called Liberty School, this one room schoolhouse was originally built on the north side of the Milk River. At an unspecified point in the early twentieth century it was put on skids and dragged across the ice while the river was frozen over to its current location and its named was changed to Burnham School. The school was nearly lost to the river during the move when an early spring thaw began melting the ice out from under it, but a freeze that solidified the ice saved it.
There were usually about 8-10 students enrolled at the Burnham School. One student, who had to commute via horseback from 4-5 miles away on the opposite side of the river, recalled in an interview that the river crossing could be dangerous in the cold and that he nearly died at least once. He also recalled sleeping overnight in the school many times when lessons ended too late for him to reach home before nightfall.
A small bomb shelter was built behind the school sometime in the mid 1940s due to concerns about Japanese bombers in WWII. Most students were only educated until eighth grade, but those that wished to finish their education transferred to Havre High School upon completing eighth grade at the schoolhouse.
The school was shut down in 1947 for unspecified reasons and was used as a makeshift grain silo. Unfortunately the grain damaged the floors and interior walls. An artist later purchased it to use as a studio, but found that the grain damage was too severe and resold it. Hail and windstorms have also recently damaged it. It remains for sale to this day, though it's too heavily decayed for any buyers to be interested.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Laredo Grain Elevators
Another grain elevator, this time a two for one special. Laredo was once one of many railroad towns where steam engines would restock on water and farmers from the surrounding region could buy goods or ship their harvest to market. Laredo was a stop on the Great Northern Railway line between Havre and Great Falls, though it's unclear whether the town began to wither away when steam engines were replaced by diesel locomotives in the 1930's, when the post office closed in 1957, or when the Great Northern Railway was bought out in 1970 by what would eventually become the BNSF Railway company. Either way, little remains besides these crumbling grain elevators next to the tracks and a few occupied farmhouses.
Massive quantities of pigeon feces inside the silo. Literal piles, in classic grain elevator fashion. Part of the reason I stopped making detours to explore them- if this all I was going to find, it didn't really seem worth the trouble.
Another grain elevator, this time a two for one special. Laredo was once one of many railroad towns where steam engines would restock on water and farmers from the surrounding region could buy goods or ship their harvest to market. Laredo was a stop on the Great Northern Railway line between Havre and Great Falls, though it's unclear whether the town began to wither away when steam engines were replaced by diesel locomotives in the 1930's, when the post office closed in 1957, or when the Great Northern Railway was bought out in 1970 by what would eventually become the BNSF Railway company. Either way, little remains besides these crumbling grain elevators next to the tracks and a few occupied farmhouses.
Massive quantities of pigeon feces inside the silo. Literal piles, in classic grain elevator fashion. Part of the reason I stopped making detours to explore them- if this all I was going to find, it didn't really seem worth the trouble.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
There is one location I will not be posting to this thread. It chronologically fits here but quite frankly it's the only one I don't feel comfortable posting to a public subforum like this one. Some of you have heard me tell this story offline before- to give the broad strokes, I got busted and was informed that, unbeknownst to me, this location only seemed abandoned and my presence had gotten me noticed by the Department of Homeland Security. I'm probably being overly paranoid not posting about it here, but with the Feds you can never be too careful. Though I never heard anything else about it, merely knowing I'd momentarily gained the attention of the DHS spooked me enough that I didn't really explore for a long time afterwards with the sole exception of Mouser Week.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Havre Retail Store
An empty retail store I found in Havre just before dawn. After a long day of exploring hundreds of miles from home and accidentally ending up on Homeland Security's radar in both a literal and metaphorical sense, I spent the night shivering in the back seat of my car trying to get a few hours of fitful sleep at the edge of a Walmart parking lot in -30°F weather (that negative sign is not a typo- thank you, extreme winter sleeping bag).
Between the bone-chilling cold, my encounter with Homeland Security the day before, and a long drive on little sleep ahead of me, I was in pretty low spirits. But I just couldn't resist a wide open door for a quick five minute explore, even if there wasn't much to see besides liminal space. This would be my last adventure before taking a nearly two month hiatus from exploring in Montana.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Havre Retail Store
An empty retail store I found in Havre just before dawn. After a long day of exploring hundreds of miles from home and accidentally ending up on Homeland Security's radar in both a literal and metaphorical sense, I spent the night shivering in the back seat of my car trying to get a few hours of fitful sleep at the edge of a Walmart parking lot in -30°F weather (that negative sign is not a typo- thank you, extreme winter sleeping bag).
Between the bone-chilling cold, my encounter with Homeland Security the day before, and a long drive on little sleep ahead of me, I was in pretty low spirits. But I just couldn't resist a wide open door for a quick five minute explore, even if there wasn't much to see besides liminal space. This would be my last adventure before taking a nearly two month hiatus from exploring in Montana.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Stockman Bar
A small pub in a particularly rural section of southeast Montana that apparently also served as a café, souvenir shop, and video rental store. It stands at a crossroads that it shares with a tiny post office and not much else. This one was a roadside find on the way back from Mouser Week, close to dusk as a snow began to gently fall. The bar itself was a shell that contained nothing but a scrapped truck and it only took a few minutes to see everything there was to see.
This was the only place I explored during my two month hiatus after my brush with the Department of Homeland Security, and it was really more of an off-the-cuff exploration of opportunity than anything else.
A small pub in a particularly rural section of southeast Montana that apparently also served as a café, souvenir shop, and video rental store. It stands at a crossroads that it shares with a tiny post office and not much else. This one was a roadside find on the way back from Mouser Week, close to dusk as a snow began to gently fall. The bar itself was a shell that contained nothing but a scrapped truck and it only took a few minutes to see everything there was to see.
This was the only place I explored during my two month hiatus after my brush with the Department of Homeland Security, and it was really more of an off-the-cuff exploration of opportunity than anything else.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Most of you may have already seen this stand-alone writeup I did on the ghost town of Comet and posted to a few other urbex forums a little over a year ago, but I'll put it here too for the sake of being a completionist. For context, the following writeup was written and posted in February of 2022, hence the different style and use of the present tense.
By this point it had been about two months since I'd done any serious exploring in Montana, and a month since I'd done any kind of exploring at all. With no sign of trouble from my encounter with the Department of Homeland Security, I was ready to stop jumping at shadows and get back into some trouble. For that, I decided to turn my attention towards one of the ghost towns of the Western Rockies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comet
As some of you might already know, I moved out to Montana back in December, though I'll only be out here until spring before moving on to places yet unknown. Montana may be incredibly sparsely populated, but that doesn't mean there's not some cool places to explore out here- provided, of course, you're willing to drive several hours into some of the most remote sections of the contiguous United States. Chief among these places are ghost towns.
There's just one problem with exploring Montana in the winter. The western half of Montana is covered by the Rocky Mountains, and the brutal mountain snowstorms render most roads outside of towns and highways impassable for most vehicles until the spring melt clears the way. Even with the extreme drought Montana is currently experiencing, there's still more than enough snow to block the roads in the Rockies. That brings us to last week.
Several collapsed storefronts along the main street
During the beginning half of February, Montana experienced a two week long stretch of unseasonably warm weather, with daytime temperatures ranging from the mid 30s to as high in 60 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas. I gambled that the warm weather would melt enough snow to render the normally- blocked rural roads passable, and drove several hours in search of a particular ghost town. Getting there required driving 15 miles up a mountain along an unplowed, winding dirt road- a daunting task in winter.
The ore concentrator building, worker's barracks, and a house
Unfortunately I jumped the gun in my eagerness to explore and found that though roads at lower elevations were clear, once I was up in the mountains the combination of thick snow and mud was too much for my two wheel drive sedan to handle. Fortunately I came prepared with tire chains, and once my car couldn't go uphill any further I threw those chains on and floored the gas. Even with the tire chains I barely made it up the mountain as I fought my steering wheel for enough traction to stay on the road, but I still reached my target in the end- the ghost town of Comet, MT.
The interior of the house pictured above
Located about an hour north of Butte, the earliest records of mining in the area date back to 1869 when a prospector named John W. Russell arrived in the area. After a few years he sold his claim to the Alta-Montana Company in 1874, which laid the groundwork for the township's founding in 1876.
Interior of the worker's barracks, first floor.
Interior of the worker's barracks, second floor
The Alta-Montana Company invested $500,000 (over $14 million, adjusted for inflation) but were unable to get a return on that investment due to the high cost of transportation. In 1883 the Helena Mining and Reduction Company bought the assets of the Alta-Montana Company and continued to invest in Comet- a move that paid off when the Northern-Pacific Railway built a line between the nearby towns of Wickes and Helena, allowing for cheap transportation of goods and materials. One of the major investments was a large scale ore concentrator, which ground down raw ore to separate it from the waste rock before it was to be shipped via tram to Wickes for refinement.
Dailey Hotel (left) and several collapsed outbuildings
Worker's barracks (left) and Dailey Hotel (right)
In the 1890s Comet reached its peak with 300 residents, a school, and 22 saloons. This prosperity was not destined to last, as the mine ran dry by 1900 and the town was completely abandoned by 1913.
The skybridge section of the ore concentrator building
Interior of the ore concentrator building
After about 15 years of abandonment, Comet was bought by the Basin Montana Tunnel Company in 1927. New technology allowed more ore to be extracted from the mine, and the Comet Mine grew to become the second largest mining operation in Montana. The average miner made about $5/day ($102/day, adjusted for inflation) during the Great Depression.
Interior of the ore concentrator building
One of the only pieces of equipment left in the ore concentrator building
This lasted until 1941 when the mine ran dry for good. All equipment was sold off and the town fell back into abandonment, and only one residence remains occupied today. There were articles in local newspapers in the 1960s that mentioned possibly reopening the mine, but nothing ever came of it.
Headframe of the Comet Mine, just down the road from the town
Winch building for the headframe elevator
By the time Comet was finally abandoned for good, roughly $20 million in profits had been extracted from the mine, leaving behind large piles of toxic mine tailings that were seeping into the nearby High Ore Creek. In 1967 a group of volunteers diverted the mine wastes away from the waterway, and in 1997 a formal environmental reclamation project was undertaken by the Mine Waste Cleanup Bureau of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality- an effort which netted them an award from the U.S. Office of Surface Mining in 2006.
Ore hopper section of the Comet Mine headframe
The nearby Comet Mine just down the road was actually open, but unfortunately I didn't come prepared for mine exploration. Since I was lacking essentials such as climbing gear, a gas meter, a partner, and knowledge regarding the warning signs of collapse and other hazards, I decided not to attempt to climb the broken ladder down into the mine. It doesn't look too difficult with the right preparation, but unfortunately I simply was not equipped to safely explore the mine and thus decided to not even try.
Vertical drop shaft leading into the Comet Mine
There were also some... oddities I noticed around the town. For example, there were several references to some kind of creature known as the "Babooncoon" scrawled on various surfaces around the town. Presumably it's some sort of local cryptid, but Googling the term found no relevant results.
A graffiti warning about the Babooncoon written on a storage tank
A reference to the Babooncoon written on a box in the worker's barracks
Additionally, I found a boulder that had crashed through the side of the worker's barracks, leaving a trail of destruction in it's wake. The strange part was that the path of the boulder ran perpendicular to the slope of the nearby hill, not along it- meaning that the boulder would have had to roll across the hillside, not down it. Looking at the surrounding geography I couldn't find any physically possible way for the boulder to have taken the path it clearly took. Furthermore, despite smashing through the wall, it left the fence on the other side of the wall untouched- as though it had somehow been launched over the fence and into the side of the building.
The boulder and the trail of destruction in its wake
Unanswered questions aside, this location was an incredibly interesting place to explore, and I finished my visit with enough time to get back down the mountain and reach the main highway just before sundown.
By this point it had been about two months since I'd done any serious exploring in Montana, and a month since I'd done any kind of exploring at all. With no sign of trouble from my encounter with the Department of Homeland Security, I was ready to stop jumping at shadows and get back into some trouble. For that, I decided to turn my attention towards one of the ghost towns of the Western Rockies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comet
As some of you might already know, I moved out to Montana back in December, though I'll only be out here until spring before moving on to places yet unknown. Montana may be incredibly sparsely populated, but that doesn't mean there's not some cool places to explore out here- provided, of course, you're willing to drive several hours into some of the most remote sections of the contiguous United States. Chief among these places are ghost towns.
There's just one problem with exploring Montana in the winter. The western half of Montana is covered by the Rocky Mountains, and the brutal mountain snowstorms render most roads outside of towns and highways impassable for most vehicles until the spring melt clears the way. Even with the extreme drought Montana is currently experiencing, there's still more than enough snow to block the roads in the Rockies. That brings us to last week.
Several collapsed storefronts along the main street
During the beginning half of February, Montana experienced a two week long stretch of unseasonably warm weather, with daytime temperatures ranging from the mid 30s to as high in 60 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas. I gambled that the warm weather would melt enough snow to render the normally- blocked rural roads passable, and drove several hours in search of a particular ghost town. Getting there required driving 15 miles up a mountain along an unplowed, winding dirt road- a daunting task in winter.
The ore concentrator building, worker's barracks, and a house
Unfortunately I jumped the gun in my eagerness to explore and found that though roads at lower elevations were clear, once I was up in the mountains the combination of thick snow and mud was too much for my two wheel drive sedan to handle. Fortunately I came prepared with tire chains, and once my car couldn't go uphill any further I threw those chains on and floored the gas. Even with the tire chains I barely made it up the mountain as I fought my steering wheel for enough traction to stay on the road, but I still reached my target in the end- the ghost town of Comet, MT.
The interior of the house pictured above
Located about an hour north of Butte, the earliest records of mining in the area date back to 1869 when a prospector named John W. Russell arrived in the area. After a few years he sold his claim to the Alta-Montana Company in 1874, which laid the groundwork for the township's founding in 1876.
Interior of the worker's barracks, first floor.
Interior of the worker's barracks, second floor
The Alta-Montana Company invested $500,000 (over $14 million, adjusted for inflation) but were unable to get a return on that investment due to the high cost of transportation. In 1883 the Helena Mining and Reduction Company bought the assets of the Alta-Montana Company and continued to invest in Comet- a move that paid off when the Northern-Pacific Railway built a line between the nearby towns of Wickes and Helena, allowing for cheap transportation of goods and materials. One of the major investments was a large scale ore concentrator, which ground down raw ore to separate it from the waste rock before it was to be shipped via tram to Wickes for refinement.
Dailey Hotel (left) and several collapsed outbuildings
Worker's barracks (left) and Dailey Hotel (right)
In the 1890s Comet reached its peak with 300 residents, a school, and 22 saloons. This prosperity was not destined to last, as the mine ran dry by 1900 and the town was completely abandoned by 1913.
The skybridge section of the ore concentrator building
Interior of the ore concentrator building
After about 15 years of abandonment, Comet was bought by the Basin Montana Tunnel Company in 1927. New technology allowed more ore to be extracted from the mine, and the Comet Mine grew to become the second largest mining operation in Montana. The average miner made about $5/day ($102/day, adjusted for inflation) during the Great Depression.
Interior of the ore concentrator building
One of the only pieces of equipment left in the ore concentrator building
This lasted until 1941 when the mine ran dry for good. All equipment was sold off and the town fell back into abandonment, and only one residence remains occupied today. There were articles in local newspapers in the 1960s that mentioned possibly reopening the mine, but nothing ever came of it.
Headframe of the Comet Mine, just down the road from the town
Winch building for the headframe elevator
By the time Comet was finally abandoned for good, roughly $20 million in profits had been extracted from the mine, leaving behind large piles of toxic mine tailings that were seeping into the nearby High Ore Creek. In 1967 a group of volunteers diverted the mine wastes away from the waterway, and in 1997 a formal environmental reclamation project was undertaken by the Mine Waste Cleanup Bureau of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality- an effort which netted them an award from the U.S. Office of Surface Mining in 2006.
Ore hopper section of the Comet Mine headframe
The nearby Comet Mine just down the road was actually open, but unfortunately I didn't come prepared for mine exploration. Since I was lacking essentials such as climbing gear, a gas meter, a partner, and knowledge regarding the warning signs of collapse and other hazards, I decided not to attempt to climb the broken ladder down into the mine. It doesn't look too difficult with the right preparation, but unfortunately I simply was not equipped to safely explore the mine and thus decided to not even try.
Vertical drop shaft leading into the Comet Mine
There were also some... oddities I noticed around the town. For example, there were several references to some kind of creature known as the "Babooncoon" scrawled on various surfaces around the town. Presumably it's some sort of local cryptid, but Googling the term found no relevant results.
A graffiti warning about the Babooncoon written on a storage tank
A reference to the Babooncoon written on a box in the worker's barracks
Additionally, I found a boulder that had crashed through the side of the worker's barracks, leaving a trail of destruction in it's wake. The strange part was that the path of the boulder ran perpendicular to the slope of the nearby hill, not along it- meaning that the boulder would have had to roll across the hillside, not down it. Looking at the surrounding geography I couldn't find any physically possible way for the boulder to have taken the path it clearly took. Furthermore, despite smashing through the wall, it left the fence on the other side of the wall untouched- as though it had somehow been launched over the fence and into the side of the building.
The boulder and the trail of destruction in its wake
Unanswered questions aside, this location was an incredibly interesting place to explore, and I finished my visit with enough time to get back down the mountain and reach the main highway just before sundown.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
HELL YES
Awesome stuff!
Awesome stuff!
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Thanks, I'm glad you think so!
This next one, like the previous post, was originally a stand-alone writeup I posted to a few different urbex forums about a year ago. I'm reposting it here for completionism's sake since I didn't initially, hence the present tense wording and different style. In terms of actual risk, this was closer to active infiltration than almost anything else I did in Montana.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Montana Developmental Center
On my way to explore the ghost town of Comet, I noticed a few abandoned buildings on the side of the road. Though I didn’t have enough daylight to explore them, I marked my map for a subsequent visit and returned at the end of February to see what this place was. Getting in required some climbing and tight squeezes, but I managed it and was able to find a location that was as untouched as it was interesting. A word of warning before we start- this place, like all American asylums, has a long and sordid history that spans over a century. As a result, this writeup is long- in fact, it might be my longest ever. So sit down, strap in, and let’s begin.
1.) The original Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum building
In 1887 it was decided that Montana needed a facility to care for disabled children, and this need was met six years later with the opening of the Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Boulder, MT. This facility housed deaf and blind children, while both mentally disabled children and adults were cared for at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs. However, it was feared that “the tendency of a feeble minded child would be to become insane” if exposed to adult patients at the Montana State Hospital, which functioned at the time as an insane asylum.
2.) Hallway in the original Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum building
3.) One of the rooms inside the original Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum building
In 1905 the Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum opened a new building for the “feeble minded” on a nearby land parcel to the original school in order to alleviate these concerns. Thirty five children were moved from the Montana State Hospital to the new building on the Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum grounds, and over the next several decades the asylum grew and added several buildings until it became a campus in it’s own right. In 1937 the deaf and blind students were moved to a new facility in Great Falls and the asylum was renamed the Montana State Training School.
4.) Exterior of the main administration building
Online records concerning the early days of the Montana State Training School are practically nonexistent, though some physical documents may exist in the Historical Society archives in Helena. Regardless, there’s enough information available to piece together a picture of what life was like at the institution, and it’s not a pretty one. One of the earlier sources is a biography of Dr. Philip Pallister, a physician at the school from 1940 to 1970.
5.) Main entry staircase to the administration building
Pallister recounts how a twenty year old patient was beaten to death by an irritated night watchwoman in 1949, and though he pushed for an investigation the death was covered up by the superintendent and county attorney as an accidental fall in a bathtub. This was not an isolated incident. Two years prior, a patient with measles had frozen to death after being transported via “ambulance”- the ambulance in question consisting of four children with Down’s Syndrome pushing a kids wagon through a blizzard with no staff supervision. But these incidents only scratch the surface of abuse that he witnessed and perpetuated during his tenure.
6.) A classroom inside the main administration building. The chalkboard reads "This building is closed Feb 1986. Heat and water is OFF"
In 1883 a European scientist named Sir Francis Galton introduced the idea of eugenics to the world. It didn’t take long until American scientists began to strongly advocate for the implementation of eugenics policies as a solution for the problem of what to do with “unfit” members of society. Well respected (at the time) psychologists and conservationists began lobbying for policies such as immigration restriction, segregation, forced sterilization, and even extermination. Of these policies, only the last one was never enacted in the US- but their work inspired their German contemporaries in the fledgling Nazi Party. America’s efforts in pioneering the field of eugenics is a shameful secret not many history books like to dive deeply into, but before the Final Solution there was the Buck v Bell ruling, and before the concentration camps there were American asylums.
7.) Another classroom inside the main administration building.
In 1907 Indiana passed the first compulsory sterilization law in the world, and numerous states followed suit. Montana was one of these states, passing an act in 1923 to “prevent the procreation of hereditary idiots, feebleminded, insane, and epileptics who are inmates of state custodial institutions, by authorizing and providing eugenical sterilization of said inmates.” The horrors of American eugenics initiatives and the genocides they were utilized to carry out must be acknowledged, though I will not delve too deeply into them here as the sheer weight and scale of that topic goes beyond the narrow scope of this write up.
8.) Another room inside the main administration building
The Montana State Training School was one of two “feeder institutions” from which sterilization candidates were drawn, and 256 people were sterilized in Montana between 1923 and 1954. After the horrors of the Holocaust became common knowledge, sterilization numbers decreased due to a reluctance to enforce eugenics-based laws and a reform passed in 1969 required the consent of patients to conduct sterilization. A further sixty six people were sterilized in Montana between 1969 and 1972, and the compulsory sterilization law was finally repealed in 1981.
9.) The exterior of the steam plant, which itself is split between three adjacent buildings. However, only one of the three was accessible.
Sterilizations were carried out at the Montana State Training School until 1924 in a poorly equipped operating room that, according to Pallister’s biography, was so infested with insects that one person had to be tasked with constantly killing them whenever a sterilization surgery was underway. Furthermore, of the twenty eight staff attendants carrying out sterilizations, only one was a registered nurse. The rest were mostly untrained. Aseptic techniques and patient medical symptoms alike were ignored as an inconvenience. Pallister was appalled by conditions in the medical ward, and began to institute a series of reforms and modernizations that eventually led to a decrease in patient deaths and illnesses.
10.) Boilers #5, #6, and the base of the smokestack in the steam plant
Pallister’s time spent as the lead physician at the Montana State Training School studying his patients in the hospital and on the autopsy table eventually led him to reject the eugenicist ideas he once held at the start of his career. “I had come to my senses. We had to start treating them as human beings,” he stated in his biography. With public support for eugenics waning, forced sterilizations in Montana ceased in 1954, though Montana to this day has never issued a formal apology to the victims of its forced sterilization law.
11.) Boilers #3 and #4 in the steam plant
Despite the end of forced sterilizations and the medical care reforms that Pallister spearheaded, abuse continued at the Montana State Training School. Renamed in 1967 to the Boulder River School and Hospital, the institute reached it’s peak in the 1960’s with over 1500 patients. At one point a ranch and farm was operated on the asylum grounds by patients to provide food and raise funds, but due to lack of funding none of the patients were payed for their work. The ranch was shut down in 1971 since using involuntarily committed patients as free labor became seen as a form of slavery.
12.) Control panel for Boiler #4
Information regarding conditions at the Boulder River School and Hospital becomes scarce again from 1970 to the mid eighties, but enough bits and pieces are scattered around to form a rough picture. From its very conception the asylum had been plagued by budgetary issues, but those shortfalls became worse than ever during this time period. At one point the institution was operating with a skeleton crew of only a quarter of the personnel needed to effectively function, with a 100% staff turnover rate.
13.) Looking down the ladder from the catwalks in the steam plant
The record number of patients combined with an insufficient budget to hire and retain enough staff led to a pattern of abuse through neglect. Nine patients died from accidents or neglect in the span of a single year, though very little information is available concerning these deaths. This trend continued until the early eighties, when a 1982 article in the Tribune Capitol Bureau announced that “Boulder River Rids Itself of Horror Headlines.” Higher employee salaries, outsourcing of patients to other programs, and another round of internal policy reforms resolved most of the issues the Boulder River School and Hospital faced, and the institution’s name was changed to the Montana Developmental Center in 1985.
14.) Control room and main office of the steam plant
From 1985 through the 2000s, the Montana Developmental Center mostly stayed out of the news and business quietly carried on as usual. There was some chatter in local newspapers as the institution began to switch from the asylum-style, long term care model to the short term, treatment center model with a focus on societal reintegration, but by and large the Montana Developmental Center appeared to stay clear of the scandals that had defined it for decades.
15.) A side room in the steam plant, used as a nesting ground by pigeons.
This all changed in 2010 when an employee was convicted of raping one of the patients, with a possible five more rapes that were substantiated but never proven. The investigation found that the Montana Developmental Center was still plagued by the same institutional problems it had faced during the Boulder River School and Hospital years- they had just gotten better at hiding them. Reports described the atmosphere as “chaotic” and “fearful,” with treatment plans not even being pursued as the undersized and underfunded staff struggled to even manage crises on a day to day basis. Mechanical restraints and forced sedation for uncooperative patients and staff injuries from combative patients were not uncommon occurrences.
16.) A water tank in the steam plant. The tank reads, "Unsuitable for food or drinking. Water tank has contaminated flammable liquid. Not petroleum free."
This investigation contributed heavily to the closing of the Montana Developmental Center in 2015, by order of a State Legislature that had finally gotten fed up with the problems the institute generated over the years. Even so, this was a controversial move that faced significant opposition from the residents of Boulder, where as much as a third of the entire town’s population worked for the Montana Developmental Center and its presence was a strong source of local identity.
17.) The base of the smokestack in the steam plant, and a set of exit doors
18.) A corner of the water tank room in the steam plant, full of miscellaneous stuff
When the Montana Developmental Center shut down the campus was divided up. The residential section on the north side of the river is now a residential neighborhood. The eastern portion currently houses the Riverside Youth Correctional Facility, a small girls-only juvenile prison. The main campus area became home to the Alternative Youth Adventures wilderness reform school.
18.) Boilers #1 and #2 in the steam plant
19.) Some piping and machinery in the steam plant
A 2016 audit by the Montana Department of Corrections found one unsubstantiated claim of inmate on inmate rape at the Riverside Youth Correctional Facility, and the Alternative Youth Adventures program has its own share of abuse. Based out of Colorado, the reform school had campuses in Utah and Montana. Very little information is available concerning conditions at the Montana location, but the Utah campus was shuttered after a prison riot and the death of a student through medical neglect. All three campuses used the “wilderness model” developed by the Aspen Achievement Academy, which has been confirmed to be abusive. In the wake of this scandal, Alternative Youth Adventures downsized its Montana campus and renamed the program Youth Dynamics. Both the Riverside Youth Correctional Facility and the Youth Dynamics program remain in operation to this day.
20.) Abandoned backpacking, snowshoeing, and camping gear from the Alternative Youth Adventures program. Found in the basement of the main administration building.
As of 2022 perhaps a third of the Montana Developmental Center campus sits abandoned. The main administration building, original Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum building, and steam plant are all accessible, and several smaller abandoned buildings that appear to be empty are currently sealed. I was able to successfully explore those two buildings, but unfortunately was chased away from the campus when I caught the attention of several Youth Dynamics students housed in a nearby building. They started yelling at me and waving their arms out the windows, so I decided to leave before they attracted the attention of the guards. On a subsequent visit I was escorted off the property after being caught inside the original Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum building by a caretaker and his dog, at which point I decided to cut my losses on this particular location and not push my luck any further.
21.) Boiler #2, seen through an exterior window to the steam plant
Over the course of its 122 years in operation, this institution changed its name a total of nine times. In several of those instances, the name change was enacted to distance the institution from the various abuse scandals that made the news over the years. The names it went by include:
1893: Montana State Deaf and Dumb Asylum
1903: Montana School for Deaf and Dumb
1905: Montana School for Deaf, Dumb and Feeble Minded
1910: Montana School for the Deaf, Blind and Backward Children
1928: Montana Training School for Deaf, Blind and Feeble Minded
1937: Montana State Training School
1959: Montana State Training School and Hospital
1967: Boulder River School and Hospital
1985: Montana Developmental Center
If you’re still with me after this 2000 word essay, thanks for reading and I hope you found it as interesting as I did!
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1
Thanks so much for sharing your Western adventures! Longform posts are kinda rare and are quite welcome here
Preservation over plunder.
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Awesome locations & pictures, thanks for sharing.
If you don't mind, would love to hear about your forbidden adventure with DHS if you feel comfortable sending a DM. Totally understand if not, as well.
If you don't mind, would love to hear about your forbidden adventure with DHS if you feel comfortable sending a DM. Totally understand if not, as well.
ultimate lurker
Re: Montana Misadventures Megathread with Aran
Oh, I'm just getting warmed up. There's a lot more to come. Unfortunately I don't really feel comfortable elaborating with someone I don't really know online- nothing personal, it's just that I don't know you. Sorry, maybe I'll tell it to you another time someday.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking back, this was really where I began to hit my stride exploring in Montana. I was making incredible finds, going big and taking risks that all seemed to pay off. It wasn't long before my journey took me to The Richest Hill On Earth, The Devil’s Perch, The City That Ate Itself. It wasn't long before my journey took me to Butte.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kelley Mine
The following paragraphs are some broader contextual history I wanted to include because it's really fascinating. However, you don't need to read it all to understand the basic facts about the Kelley Mine. If you do want that history, read on- but if you just want the bare facts about the mine itself, you can safely scroll down to the next double red line and start there.
========================================
========================================
It is my sincerest wish that I could do a full scale writeup on the legendary War Of The Copper Kings that took place at the turn of the nineteenth century in Butte. Entire books can and have been written about the battle between the copper barons of Montana that raged across the nation for nearly two decades, and this brief summary cannot do it justice. Nicknamed the Richest Hill On Earth, the mines of Butte produced a quarter of the global copper supply. With the Industrial Revolution well underway and the nation switching from kerosene to electricity, America needed copper wire in enormous quantities. The three Copper Kings knew that whoever controlled the mines of Butte controlled the American economy as surely as the railroads and coal mines did.
No battlefield was too small or great, from the baseball pitches of Helena to the halls of Congress. Newspapers and votes were bought, senators and judges bribed. A hundred thousand lives were held hostage while rival miners engaged in open warfare in the mines below using poison gas, weaponizing floods, and throwing dynamite to try and gain control of disputed claims. Hundreds of lawsuits with legal loopholes galore ground the court system to a standstill, stock market trickery drove dozens of investors to suicide and crashed the national economy, and all of this still only scratches the surface of the depths, both metaphorical and literal, that the Copper Kings were willing to sink to in their fight to rule the mines of Butte- and by extension, the course of American industrialization itself.
The war eventually came to an end in 1907. The first of the Copper Kings had been dead and buried for seven years by that point. The second retired from mining after openly buying a seat on the US Senate and leading a long and successful career in politics despite his various corruption scandals. The third fought the largest monopoly in America to a standstill for nearly a decade under the banner of the labor movement before losing everything and dying a broken man. Of the three Copper Kings, none of them truly won the war. That dubious honor goes to the fourth player in the war between three kings- the Amalgamated Copper Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company.
If you know anything about the labor movement in the Gilded Age, you've heard of Standard Oil. Owned by the Rockefellers and frequently employing the Pinkertons, they were perhaps the most hated and feared trust of the time. They were also one of the most powerful monopolies in America. At one point in the war they shuttered all of their mines, put all their employees out of work, and threw down an ultimatum to the Montana state government- either pass a set of laws favorable to their interests and bow to Standard Oil, or they'd let a hundred thousand workers starve. With winter approaching fast and Standard Oil lawyers and congressmen in Washington DC preventing federal intervention, the state government of Montana fell to its knees before the monopoly. It’s no exaggeration to say that by the time the War of the Copper Kings had finished, Standard Oil owned Montana.
But the victory of the Amalgamated Copper Company and Standard Oil was not to last. In 1911 a trustbusting lawsuit by the United States government shattered Standard Oil into dozens of independent companies. Among them was the Amalgamated Copper Company, which rebranded itself as the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Anaconda Copper rose once again to become the fourth largest company in the world, a status it maintained until the end of WWII.
========================================
========================================
Start here if you wanted to skip the big historic context section.
The Kelley Mine was the last of the mine shafts dug by Anaconda Copper in Butte, opened in 1946 and descending nearly a mile beneath the surface. While the mine itself did produce a small profit, that was never its primary function. Three of the largest and most profitable mines in Butte at the time were the nearby Mountain Con, Leonard, and Steward Mines. The Kelley Mine connected to all three of those mines at the 3000 foot level and its enormous headframes served as a convenient central shaft and extraction point to haul ore to the surface. The pump houses for all three of those mines as well as the nearby Berkley open pit copper mine were situated in the Kelley mineworks.
In the 1970s Anaconda Copper took a severe financial hit when some of their most profitable holdings abroad were nationalized during the socialist revolutions of South America. This played a direct role in motivating CIA involvement in South America during this time period, particularly in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The history of CIA involvement in South American politics during this time period is a vast and complicated topic that goes beyond the scope of this entry, but suffice to say the nationalization of Anaconda Copper assets by the three countries listed above played a role in prompting America's response.
With Anaconda Copper suffering major financial downturns abroad and the mines of Butte beginning to run dry, the company sold out to the Atlantic Richfield Company. Better known as ARCO, it was another one of Standard Oil’s descendants that had split off during the trustbusting of the the early 1910s. With most of the easily mined copper inside the Richest Hill On Earth tapped out and the price of copper falling, ARCO ceased operations in the Berkley Pit and shut down the last remnants of the Kelley Mine for good in 1983. ARCO itself was later bought out by British Petroleum Inc in the year 2000. BP still owns most of those assets to this day, including the Kelley Mine and the Berkeley Pit.
The massive headframes of the Kelley Mine. Unlike most of Butte's mines, the Kelley Mine had two wooden headframes instead of a singular metal one.
Level 1 of the mine, where the elevator shafts stop just below the surface. These tunnels lead to a large exit in the side of the hill that served as the primary entrance in and out of the mine.
One of the elevators. This shaft likely drops all the way to the bottom of the mine, 4990 feet below the surface.
Another section of the Level 1 tunnels. Level 1 is accessible through a staircase, but descending to Level 2 or below would require significant amounts of ropework.
Where the old mine ambulance stretchers once hung.
The tunnel entrance and exit leading out from the side of the hill.
Looking up at one of the headframes from below.
A giant tank hanging from one of the headframes.
Some side buildings, likely the power plant and cooling tower for the surface works.
Interior of the powerplant. It was pretty empty.
Interior of another warehouse sized building of some kind. Possibly the pumphouse, but I'm not sure.
A shot of the headframes close to dusk.
The Kelley Mine with the city of Butte in the background.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So yeah, this is a bit different from my usual format thanks to the inclusion of the part about the War of the Copper Kings. To be perfectly honest I probably could have omitted it, but it was such an interesting historical leadup related to this mine that I really wanted to include it anyway. Hopefully I didn't scare anyone off with that massive wall of text, and I hope you found it as interesting to read as I did to write.