Mining Incidents
Search Operators Mines Alerts Research Controllers Fatalgrams About
Countries
Peru Chile
English Español
Abandoned mines › Iowa
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Appanoose County, Iowa

Appanoose County, Iowa has 93 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1939–1979, including 2 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts). OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 24 problems in the county, 19 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 19 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Appanoose 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)
93
Mine openings
2
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
19
MSHA mines marked abandoned
19
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits8 quadrangle maps, published 1939–1979 24 OSMRE problems, 5 reclaimed 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mine openings
    shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
    3 2.6%
  2. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    59 50.4%
  3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    30 25.6%
  4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    10 8.5%
  5. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    14 12.0%
  6. Other
    symbols outside the classes above
    1 0.9%
OSMRE abandoned mine land problems24 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Bowen P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Coatney P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Coatney P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Coatney P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Coatney P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
Coatney P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Fowler P1 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Fowler P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Completed
Fowler P2 Clogged Stream Lands In Reclamation
Fowler P2 Clogged Streams Reclamation Completed
Ia - Appanoose - Fea Problem type not recorded In Reclamation
Kirkpatrick P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Kirkpatrick P1 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Kirkpatrick P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Kirkpatrick P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Kirkpatrick P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Kirkpatrick P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Kirkpatrick P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Mcgrann P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Mcgrann P2 Polluted Water: Human Consumption Reclamation Completed
Osmonson P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Osmonson P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Osmonson P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Scott McCoy P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending

Problem types carry OSMRE's priority prefix: P1 and P2 are threats to health, safety and property, P3 is environmental. A problem area is a cluster of problems reclaimed as one project; several rows can share one location.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned19 on register
  1. Baugher Valley Rock & Sand
    Surface metal/non-metal · Baugher Valley Rock & Sand · MSHA ID 1302159
    Abandoned
  2. Centerville Portable Screen All
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & W Quarries, Inc. · MSHA ID 1302406
    Abandoned
  3. Centerville Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Carter-Waters Corp · MSHA ID 1300352
    Abandoned
  4. Centerville Shop
    Facility metal/non-metal · L & W Quarries, Inc. · MSHA ID 1302357
    Abandoned
  5. Centerville Stripping Crew
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & W Quarries, Inc. · MSHA ID 1302312
    Abandoned
  6. Cincinnati Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta-Construction Aggregates Division · MSHA ID 1301153
    Abandoned
  7. CINCINNATI SAND PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta Aggregates · MSHA ID 1302125
    Abandoned
  8. Jones Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Eagle Limestone Quarries, Inc. · MSHA ID 1302291
    Abandoned
  9. Kahoka Portable Screen All
    Surface metal/non-metal · Viking Aggregates, Inc. · MSHA ID 1302405
    Abandoned
  10. L & W #5
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & W Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300974
    Abandoned
  11. L & W No 2 Quarry And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & W Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300166
    Abandoned
  12. L And W Quarry #8
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & W Construction Company · MSHA ID 1302006
    Abandoned
  13. Mc Clurg Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mott Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 1301515
    Abandoned
  14. Mott Quarries Shop
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mott Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 1301561
    Abandoned
  15. Oden Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Twin States Limestone LLC · MSHA ID 1302280
    Abandoned
  16. Quarry No 3
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & W Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301768
    Abandoned
  17. Spare
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cantera Aggregates, LLC. · MSHA ID 1302472
    Abandoned
  18. Swan Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mott Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 1301718
    Abandoned
  19. Tri-Star Quarries, LLC - Plano Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tri-Star Quarries, LLC · MSHA ID 1302339
    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
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 49
Quarry 17
Open Pit Mine 6
Gravel Pit 5
Clay Pit 4
Strip Mine 4
P3 Spoil Area 4
P3 High Wall 3
Quarry 3
P1 Hazardous Water Bodies 2
Mine Dump 2
P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 2
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 2
P3 Pits 2
P2 Clogged Streams 1
P2 Polluted Water: Human Consumption 1
Problem type not recorded 1
P1 Dangerous Highwalls 1
P1 Vertical Openings 1
Adit 1
P2 Hazardous Water Bodies 1
P3 Haul Road 1
Sand Pit 1
Mine Shaft 1
P2 Clogged Stream Lands 1
P2 Dangerous Highwalls 1
Other counties in IowaAll 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.