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Abandoned mines › Colorado
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Prowers County, Colorado

Prowers County, Colorado has 44 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1952–1978. MSHA's register carries 33 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Prowers County, every OSMRE abandoned mine land problem in the county, and every MSHA-registered mine here with status Abandoned. Named features are listed below; unnamed ones are counted by type. Locations are deliberately not shown: this page says what abandoned workings are in the county, not where to find them. They are dangerous and should not be entered.

Mapped mine features (USGS)
44
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
33
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits18 quadrangle maps, published 1952–1978 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    3 6.8%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    41 93.2%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned33 on register
  1. Arkansas Valley Alfalfa
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503339
    Abandoned
  2. Bowles
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503340
    Abandoned
  3. Burnet
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503341
    Abandoned
  4. Burnett Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0503595
    Abandoned
  5. City Of Granada
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503434
    Abandoned
  6. Conners Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0503622
    Abandoned
  7. Crusher Operation #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504209
    Abandoned
  8. Crusher Operation #3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504519
    Abandoned
  9. Crushing Operation #4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504536
    Abandoned
  10. Dredge Op #3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504116
    Abandoned
  11. Dredge Operation #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504558
    Abandoned
  12. Dredge Operation #4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504911
    Abandoned
  13. ELJAY CRUSHER OPERATION #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · CARDER INC · MSHA ID 0504891
    Abandoned
  14. HOLLY PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Eastern Colorado Aggregates · MSHA ID 0504537
    Abandoned
  15. John Weber Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Prowers County · MSHA ID 0504512
    Abandoned
  16. Jones Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504208
    Abandoned
  17. Lamar Concrete Division
    Surface metal/non-metal · Valco Inc · MSHA ID 0501052
    Abandoned
  18. Neill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503342
    Abandoned
  19. PORTABLE YARDER
    Surface metal/non-metal · CARDER INC · MSHA ID 0504863
    Abandoned
  20. Reichard Or Richard
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503343
    Abandoned
  21. Rental Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Prowers Aggregate Operators, LLC · MSHA ID 0505093
    Abandoned
  22. Rock Tran LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rock Tran LLC · MSHA ID 0505188
    Abandoned
  23. SCREEN OPERATION #6
    Surface metal/non-metal · CARDER INC · MSHA ID 0504874
    Abandoned
  24. Screening Operation #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504343
    Abandoned
  25. Screening Operation #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504117
    Abandoned
  26. Screening Operation #4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504538
    Abandoned
  27. Screening Operation #5
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0504612
    Abandoned
  28. State Land Board
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503344
    Abandoned
  29. The Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carder Inc · MSHA ID 0503646
    Abandoned
  30. Valco Wiley Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Valco Inc · MSHA ID 0502829
    Abandoned
  31. West Farm Pit-Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Prowers Aggregate Operators, LLC · MSHA ID 0505054
    Abandoned
  32. West Farm Pit-Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Prowers Aggregate Operators, LLC · MSHA ID 0505038
    Abandoned
  33. Wollert
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Department Of Highways · MSHA ID 0503345
    Abandoned

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

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms
Feature type Features
Gravel Pit 33
Sand Pit 3
Disturbed Surface - Pit 2
Borrow Pit 2
Sand Pit 1
Gravel Pit 1
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 1
Quarry 1
Other counties in ColoradoAll counties →
How to read these numbers

A USGS feature is a symbol on a historical topographic map, there when the map was surveyed; it may since have been sealed, reclaimed, built over or reopened as a working mine, and the map does not say which. An OSMRE row is a problem the abandoned mine land program tracks, not a mine. An MSHA mine is a registered operation whose operator reported abandonment, a record that starts in the 1970s. The three overlap and are never added together. The county is assigned from each feature's coordinates against the Census 2023 county boundaries. The full method is on the national page.

Sources
  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.