Abandoned mines in Monroe County, Iowa

1. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   23 15.2%
2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   2 1.3%
3. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   39 25.8%
4. Mills, tipples and facilities

   processing plants and hazardous structures
   2 1.3%
5. Other reclamation problems

   highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
   85 56.3%

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.

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.

1. Eddyville Quarry

   Surface metal/non-metal · Kaser Corp · MSHA ID 1301226
   Abandoned 1985-05-29
2. Iowa Coal Mining Company Coal Prep Plant

   Facility coal · Iowa Coal Mining Company · MSHA ID 1301970
   Abandoned 1981-05-13
3. Mine #1

   Surface coal · Iowa Coal Mining Company · MSHA ID 1301839
   Abandoned 1994-06-27
4. Mine No 1

   Surface coal · Southern Iowa Resources Inc · MSHA ID 1301976
   Abandoned 1982-10-01
5. Mine No 1

   Underground coal · Superior Coal Company · MSHA ID 1302008
   Abandoned and Sealed 1986-01-17
6. Mine No 2

   Underground coal · Superior Coal Company · MSHA ID 1302135
   Abandoned and Sealed 1988-08-30
7. Mine No4

   Underground coal · Lovilia Coal Company · MSHA ID 1300384
   Abandoned 1981-12-21
8. Prep Plant

   Facility coal · University Avenue Coal Company · MSHA ID 1301096
   Abandoned 1979-10-01
9. Welsh Mine

   Surface coal · Iowa Fuel & Minerals · MSHA ID 1301834
   Abandoned 1986-09-08

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

• Marion County 136
• Linn County 107
• Mahaska County 97
• Clayton County 95
• Appanoose County 93
• Delaware County 91
• Clay County 89
• Dubuque County 88
• Boone County 87
• Cerro Gordo County 83
• Black Hawk County 82
• Polk County 79

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.