Mining Incidents
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Gallatin County, Illinois

Gallatin County, Illinois has 33 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1916–1996, including 7 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts); 3 of the features carry a name on the map. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 26 problems in the county, 8 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 18 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Gallatin 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)
33
Mine openings
7
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
8
MSHA mines marked abandoned
18
3 features carry a name0 prospect pits6 quadrangle maps, published 1916–1996 26 OSMRE problems, 18 reclaimed 3 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
    17 28.8%
  2. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    22 37.3%
  3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    4 6.8%
  4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    4 6.8%
  5. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    12 20.3%
Named features on the maps3 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Berkel Mine Open Pit Mine
Blue Blaze Mine Adit
Saline Mines Mine

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.

OSMRE abandoned mine land problems26 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
B & W Coal Co. P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
B & W Coal Co. P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
B & W Coal Co. P3 Other Reclamation Completed
Blue Blaz Bloc Mine P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Burnett-love Coal Company P2 Portals Reclamation Pending
Burnett-love Coal Company P3 Water Problems Reclamation Pending
Eagle Strip - Area 1 P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Eagle Strip - Area 1 P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Eagle Strip - Area 2 P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Pending
Eagle Strip - Area 2 P3 Haul Road Reclamation Pending
Eagle Strip - Area 2 P3 High Wall Reclamation Pending
Eagle Strip - Area 2 P3 Pits Reclamation Pending
Eagle Strip - Area 2 P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Pending
Edgar Scott Mine #1 P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Edgar Scott Mine #1 P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Green Hill Mine P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Green Hill Mine P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Mary Ann No.2 Mine P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
National Mining Company P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Pickford Mine P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Producers Coal Company P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Producers Coal Company P3 Haul Road Reclamation Completed
Producers Coal Company P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Sunnyside Mine P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Westside Mine P1 Surface Burning Reclamation Completed
Westside Mine P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed

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 Abandoned18 on register
  1. Arclar Mine
    Underground coal · A & F Coal Company Inc · MSHA ID 1102800
    Abandoned and Sealed
  2. Central Prep Plant
    Surface coal · Black Beauty Coal Company · MSHA ID 1102912
    Abandoned
  3. Cottage Grove Auger
    Surface coal · Midwest Auger Co. · MSHA ID 1103102
    Abandoned
  4. DREDGE #I
    Surface metal/non-metal · Imi-South Llc · MSHA ID 1101740
    Abandoned
  5. Eagle Loading Dock
    Facility coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1101781
    Abandoned
  6. Eagle Mine No 1
    Underground coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100597
    Abandoned
  7. Eagle No. 2
    Facility coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100598
    Abandoned
  8. Eagle Prep Plant
    Facility coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1101780
    Abandoned
  9. Eagle Surface Prep
    Surface coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100596
    Abandoned
  10. Eagle Valley Mine
    Underground coal · Big Ridge, Inc. · MSHA ID 1102846
    Abandoned and Sealed
  11. Equality
    Surface coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1102749
    Abandoned
  12. Jader Mine No 3
    Surface coal · Jader Fuel Co Inc · MSHA ID 1102832
    Abandoned
  13. Jader Mine No 5
    Surface coal · Jader Fuel Company Inc · MSHA ID 1102861
    Abandoned
  14. Mine No 5
    Underground coal · Lovilia Coal Company · MSHA ID 1102774
    Abandoned and Sealed
  15. Moore Auger Pit
    Facility coal · Diversified Materials Inc · MSHA ID 1101660
    Abandoned
  16. N.A.A.M. No. 11
    Surface coal · North American Auger Mining Inc. · MSHA ID 1103142
    Abandoned
  17. Wild Cat Hills Auger
    Surface coal · Black Hawk Mining Inc · MSHA ID 1103056
    Abandoned
  18. Wildcat Hills Mine - Cottage Grove Pit
    Surface coal · Peabody Midwest Mining, LLC · MSHA ID 1103017
    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
Strip Mine 14
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 6
P2 Dangerous Highwalls 4
Adit 4
P1 Vertical Openings 3
P2 Portals 3
Gravel Pit 3
Mine Shaft 3
P2 Vertical Openings 2
P3 Gobs 2
P3 Pits 2
P1 Portals 2
P3 Haul Road 2
Mine 1
Gravel Pit 1
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 1
P3 Other 1
P1 Surface Burning 1
P3 High Wall 1
P3 Water Problems 1
Open Pit Mine 1
P3 Spoil Area 1
Other counties in IllinoisAll 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.