Abandoned mines in Owyhee County, Idaho

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   363 26.6%
2. Prospect pits and trenches

   shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
   830 60.9%
3. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   23 1.7%
4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   128 9.4%
5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   20 1.5%

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. Antique Bronze Quarry

   Surface metal/non-metal · Boise Stone & Tile Inc · MSHA ID 1000651
   Abandoned 1978-11-22
2. Aztec Pit

   Surface metal/non-metal · Boise Stone & Tile Inc · MSHA ID 1000652
   Abandoned 1978-10-11
3. Bluebird Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Pacific Cypress Resources Ltd · MSHA ID 1001596
   Abandoned 1983-07-21
4. Bravita 2

   Surface metal/non-metal · Bravita LLC · MSHA ID 1002230
   Abandoned 2016-01-08
5. Chuckar Mill

   Facility metal/non-metal · Chuckar Mining Company · MSHA ID 1001588
   Abandoned 1983-03-18
6. Chuckar Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Chuckar Mining Company · MSHA ID 1001511
   Abandoned 1982-08-27
7. Ida Belle Mine

   Underground metal/non-metal · Mc Dermett & Sons · MSHA ID 1001520
   Abandoned 1981-06-15
8. Idaho Placer

   Surface metal/non-metal · Idaho Placers Corp Incorp · MSHA ID 1001466
   Abandoned 1981-06-15
9. Jordan Creek Placer

   Surface metal/non-metal · Walt Farr & Associates · MSHA ID 1001570
   Abandoned 1985-07-18
10. Jordan Creek Placer Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Century 21 Inc · MSHA ID 1001490
    Abandoned 1981-06-15
11. Marsing Clay Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Pullman Brick Company Inc · MSHA ID 1000543
    Abandoned 1978-11-22
12. Monarca Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Gary Peck · MSHA ID 1001521
    Abandoned 1988-08-22
13. OWYHEE CALCIUM INC

    Surface metal/non-metal · Owyhee Calcium Inc · MSHA ID 1001817
    Abandoned 2002-09-20
14. Portable Plant #1

    Surface metal/non-metal · Robison Logging & Excavation · MSHA ID 1002078
    Abandoned 2018-08-17
15. Reynolds Creek Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Boise Stone & Tile Inc · MSHA ID 1000653
    Abandoned 1978-10-11
16. Rock Tepe Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Tepe Gemstone Supply Inc · MSHA ID 1000863
    Abandoned 1979-11-06
17. Silver Burg Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Big Buzz Mining & Development Inc · MSHA ID 1001342
    Abandoned 1979-02-26
18. Silver Rock

    Underground metal/non-metal · A I M Inc · MSHA ID 1001471
    Abandoned 1980-08-05
19. Sinker Tunnel Mine Site

    Underground metal/non-metal · Owyhee Noble Metals LLC · MSHA ID 1002233
    Abandoned 2014-01-29
20. Soda Creek Placer

    Surface metal/non-metal · Omega Mining Inc · MSHA ID 1001797
    Abandoned 1988-08-25
21. South Mountain Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Thunder Mountain Resources, Inc./Owyhee Gold Trust · MSHA ID 1000866
    Abandoned 2024-03-19

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

• Shoshone County 2,127
• Lemhi County 1,932
• Blaine County 1,606
• Custer County 1,282
• Idaho County 888
• Butte County 661
• Bonner County 412
• Valley County 389
• Boise County 353
• Elmore County 345
• Adams County 298
• Cassia County 274

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.