Abandoned mines in El Dorado County, California

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   258 49.1%
2. Prospect pits and trenches

   shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
   26 5.0%
3. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   129 24.6%
4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   40 7.6%
5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   71 13.5%
6. Mills, tipples and facilities

   processing plants and hazardous structures
   1 0.2%

A name is the label printed beside the symbol on the map. "First mapped" is the earliest topographic edition that shows the symbol, which bounds the feature's age from above; it is not the date it was worked. Unnamed features (most prospect pits, adits and shafts carry no label) are in the counts above but not this list.

1. Big Cut Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · Richard Churches · MSHA ID 0405819
   Abandoned 2013-12-02
2. Blue Ledge Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Blue Ledge Mining Company · MSHA ID 0404283
   Abandoned 1984-03-12
3. Camino Sand & Gravel

   Surface metal/non-metal · Camino Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 0402779
   Abandoned 1982-08-09
4. Cassill Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Vulcan Mining & Development Company · MSHA ID 0404612
   Abandoned 1991-05-24
5. Church Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Anderson & Associates · MSHA ID 0404580
   Abandoned 1982-08-09
6. Colton Lime & Stone Auburn Plant

   Facility metal/non-metal · California Portland Cement Company · MSHA ID 0404362
   Abandoned 1987-03-19
7. Foothill Pit

   Surface metal/non-metal · Foothill Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 0404033
   Abandoned 1982-05-21
8. Gerle Creek

   Surface metal/non-metal · U S Forest Service · MSHA ID 0403488
   Abandoned 1979-07-19
9. Grit Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Spanish Flat Mining Co. · MSHA ID 0405577
   Abandoned 2006-02-24
10. Hazel Creek Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Mineral Strategies Inc · MSHA ID 0404560
    Abandoned 1988-02-16
11. John Tynes Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · John Tynes · MSHA ID 0404032
    Abandoned 1985-04-23
12. Kelsey Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Anderson & Associates · MSHA ID 0404579
    Abandoned 1982-08-09
13. Lawyer Borrow Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Archie Lawyer · MSHA ID 0405939
    Abandoned 2024-04-11
14. Lotus Pit And Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · Lotus Aggregates Inc · MSHA ID 0401844
    Abandoned 1982-08-09
15. Marble Valley Limestone Quarry

    Surface metal/non-metal · O J Jiles Excavating & Grading · MSHA ID 0403549
    Abandoned 1982-12-14
16. Minnehaha Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Anderson & Associates & Anita Somer · MSHA ID 0404577
    Abandoned 1984-07-16
17. MOUNTAIN AGGREGATES MARIN FACILI

    Surface metal/non-metal · Mountain Aggregates Llc · MSHA ID 0405376
    Abandoned 2001-10-05
18. Richlue Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Teddy Bear Mining Company · MSHA ID 0404697
    Abandoned 1984-10-23
19. Rocky Bar Gravel Project

    Underground metal/non-metal · Thompson-Wylie Mining Inc · MSHA ID 0404734
    Abandoned 1986-06-09
20. Snow's Quarry

    Surface metal/non-metal · Cobalt Crushing · MSHA ID 0405616
    Abandoned 2007-09-20
21. SNOW'S QUARRY

    Surface metal/non-metal · Snow'S Quarry Products · MSHA ID 0405446
    Abandoned 2004-01-05
22. Spreckels Limestone & Aggregate Products

    Facility metal/non-metal · Limestone Products Company Inc · MSHA ID 0400104
    Abandoned 1991-03-25
23. SPRECKELS LIMESTONE&AGGREGATE PR

    Surface metal/non-metal · Limestone Products Company Inc · MSHA ID 0400038
    Abandoned 2001-09-17
24. Teddy Bear Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Teddy Bear Mining Company · MSHA ID 0404574
    Abandoned 1984-08-10
25. TIMM MINE

    Underground metal/non-metal · Lamplight, Inc · MSHA ID 0402459
    Abandoned 2017-01-25
26. Trail Claim

    Underground metal/non-metal · Youngquist Mining Company · MSHA ID 0404046
    Abandoned 1982-08-10
27. Webber Creek Pit And Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · Allen H Lindsey Howard G Lune Partn · MSHA ID 0402780
    Abandoned 1975-11-21
28. Weber Creek Quarry

    Surface metal/non-metal · Sierra Rock · MSHA ID 0404292
    Abandoned 2006-02-15

Status and date are as reported to MSHA by the operator. Each mine's own page carries its accident, citation and inspection record.

• San Bernardino County 14,976
• Inyo County 11,475
• Kern County 4,879
• Riverside County 3,227
• Mono County 2,946
• Siskiyou County 2,362
• Imperial County 1,232
• Mariposa County 1,079
• Tuolumne County 948
• San Diego County 901
• Calaveras County 840
• Shasta County 832

1. USGS, Consolidated Prospect- and Mine-Related Features from 7.5- and 15-Minute Topographic Quadrangle Maps of the United States (USMIN)
   597,612 point and area features digitized from about 106,350 historical topographic maps published 1886–2006; public domain (CC0). A feature is a map symbol, not a field-verified site, and the map does not say whether it was still worked.
2. USGS Fact Sheet 2025–3003, The Abandoned Mine Inventory of the United States
   States that as of 2025 there is no comprehensive national inventory of abandoned mine features, and that the detailed national database now being built will not be published.
3. OSMRE, Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System (e-AMLIS), public Problems layer
   One row per abandoned mine land problem in a problem area, with its type, funding program and reclamation status; mostly coal mined before the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Coordinates are the problem area's.
4. MSHA, Mines dataset (Mine Data Retrieval System)
   Every mine registered with MSHA since the 1970s; a mine reads Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed when its operator reported that status. Refreshed weekly.
5. US Census Bureau, 2023 cartographic county boundaries (1:500,000)
   Each feature's county is assigned by its coordinates against these boundaries, not copied from the source file.
6. GAO-20-238, Abandoned Hardrock Mines (March 2020)
   Federal agencies had identified at least 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features on federal land and estimated more than 390,000 more not yet captured in their databases.
7. Abandoned Hardrock Mine Reclamation (AHMR) Program, US Department of the Interior
   The program the USGS inventory is compiled for. Its appropriations and the 674,000 field-confirmed feature count on this page were provided by the program manager, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance, and are cited with permission (2026-09-08).
8. IMCC-NAAMLP Hardrock AML Report
   Page 48 carries the two figures this page leans on: USGS estimates 633,181 of the 725,690 mine features it recorded from historic topographic maps, 87 percent, are hardrock; and state and federal agencies have submitted more than 724,000 AML features to the national database being built, already more than the historic maps hold. Year-by-year AHMR funding is on page 35.