I can’t recall the exact moment in time when I became interested in ghost towns. I’m not even exactly sure what draws me to these mostly forgotten and haunted towns. Part of the draw could be the vibrant history, the hunt for new and undiscovered towns, or maybe even the challenging and exciting roads that often lead to these towns. Hopefully this story will give you the inspiration to chase your own ghosts.
The last few years I’ve spent quite a bit of time searching for ghost towns on my KTM or in my Jeep. It’s taken hours of research and pouring over maps to find some of these towns, most of which were built for the one and only purpose of giving miners a place to live while not working. Most of these towns are not listed on maps anymore and are sometimes found by sheer luck and a little help from a local.
This fall, I set out to try and find a ghost town that I had heard about but had never seen. The town was Comet, Montana. I had been close to Comet earlier in the summer while on a dual sport trip, but being short on time, I decided to come back later. I loaded up the Jeep with a few supplies and my trusty sidekick, Tipper, and we hit the road.
The first section of the trip included some highway to get from Kalispell to Ovando, where we would turn off on our first section of dirt road. Along this route I stopped to get a picture of the early morning mist floating above Swan Lake.
At Ovando, we turned off the highway and onto a section of dirt road (FR109) that is part of the Continental Divide Trail and very popular with Mountain Bikers and Dual Sport riders. It leads to Huckleberry Pass, which is very twisty, steep and affords great views into the Scapegoat Wilderness.
The road ends at Hwy 200 and Lincoln where I found my first treasure of the trip, an early 60’s Dodge Power Wagon Town Wagon. The truck was in very nice shape and I was told that it still ran great, but “NO, IT’S NOT FOR SALE”. At least I tried.
From downtown Lincoln, we headed east towards Stemple Pass and our first ghost town of the trip, Marysville.
Marysville (N-46 deg. 45.036 W-112 deg. 18.011) was once home to over 5,000 residents and it’s own railroad spur line to haul ore from the mines. This town is considered a “living” ghost town and continues on today, on a much smaller scale, mixing contemporary homes with restored old homes and abandoned buildings.
The area around Marysville is rich in old mines and mining buildings. It is also a popular area for off-road enthusiasts and ATV riders with hundreds of miles of trails and roads to explore. From Marysville, we drove over Priest Pass and into Helena coming within a short distance of another ghost town, Rimini.
After leaving Helena, we only had to drive a short distance on I15 to Exit 176 at Jefferson City. The road from Jefferson City leads to the town of Wickes (N-46 deg. 20.976 W-112 deg. 06.208), which at one time was the center of Montana’s richest silver deposit.
It’s hard to imagine it today, but Wickes was once the premier smelting town for the territory of Montana (Territory, then State in 1889) and home to over 1500 residents. Some of the original town was destroyed by wildfire in 2000, ninety-eight years after fire first took most of its buildings. Now all that is left are a few decaying buildings and some mobile homes. We did discover one of the original charcoal kilns. It is the only remaining kiln of ten that would produce 25,000 bushels of charcoal a month to keep the smelters going around the clock.
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