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Abandoned mines › Iowa
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Buchanan County, Iowa

Buchanan County, Iowa has 71 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1965–1982. MSHA's register carries 26 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Buchanan 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)
71
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
26
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits13 quadrangle maps, published 1965–1982 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 4.2%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    68 95.8%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned26 on register
  1. Aurora
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300854
    Abandoned
  2. Aurora Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gaffney Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 1301758
    Abandoned
  3. Bloom Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300133
    Abandoned
  4. Brooks Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bruening Rock Products Inc · MSHA ID 1300151
    Abandoned
  5. Bunker Hill Stone Co Quarry & Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bunker Hill Stone Company · MSHA ID 1301428
    Abandoned
  6. Burns Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300961
    Abandoned
  7. Cook Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Maudlin Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301823
    Abandoned
  8. Greenley Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Quality Ready Mix Company · MSHA ID 1301456
    Abandoned
  9. Hazleton Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301755
    Abandoned
  10. Hertzberg Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300363
    Abandoned
  11. Hoffman Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301799
    Abandoned
  12. Hullerman Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301829
    Abandoned
  13. Kiler Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · B L Anderson Inc · MSHA ID 1301394
    Abandoned
  14. Levendusky Quarry And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300135
    Abandoned
  15. Miller Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301759
    Abandoned
  16. Miller Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301967
    Abandoned
  17. Mulneaux Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300136
    Abandoned
  18. Obrien Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · O Brien Quarry Company · MSHA ID 1301739
    Abandoned
  19. Oelwein Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300054
    Abandoned
  20. Rassmussen Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300131
    Abandoned
  21. Sells Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300309
    Abandoned
  22. Sullivan Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1301800
    Abandoned
  23. Ward Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Niemann Construction Company · MSHA ID 1300964
    Abandoned
  24. Wards Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gaffney Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 1300316
    Abandoned
  25. Widger Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Basic Materials Corp · MSHA ID 1302015
    Abandoned
  26. ZUPKE CRUSHER #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Zupke Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 1302226
    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
Quarry 31
Gravel Pit 18
Quarry 8
Gravel Pit 7
Sand Pit 4
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 3
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.