Comet, a former mining settlement sitting roughly 15 miles to the northwest of Boulder, has been largely abandoned since 1941. Despite more than 80 years of decay and dilapidation, though, what structures still remain constitute one of Montana’s best preserved ghost towns.
Boulder Mayor Rusty Giulio, whose family’s involvement in Comet and its mining operations dates back to 1902, now owns large swaths of the deserted community and has embarked on an ambitious quest to make Comet habitable and prosperous once more.
“My dad used to tell me to stay out of the mining business; you’ll lose your ass! And I sort of listened,” said Giulio, while driving a bus full of invited guests to Comet. “We mined for two seasons, and took in $75,000 in minerals, which took $97,000 to process. So, we’re done with that! But now we’re coming in, and getting a lot of this place rebuilt. We’re really changing things.”
