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Abandoned mines › Illinois
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in McHenry County, Illinois

McHenry County, Illinois has 191 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1960–1993. MSHA's register carries 37 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering McHenry 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)
191
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
37
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits20 quadrangle maps, published 1960–1993 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
    11 5.8%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    180 94.2%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned37 on register
  1. Algonquin Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Heidelberg Materials Midwest Agg, Inc. · MSHA ID 1101117
    Abandoned
  2. Camp Kanzler
    Surface metal/non-metal · James Kanzler · MSHA ID 1103106
    Abandoned
  3. CARY PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cary Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 1102852
    Abandoned
  4. Crystal Lake Facility
    Surface metal/non-metal · Consolidated Materials Inc. · MSHA ID 1102769
    Abandoned
  5. CRYSTAL LAKE SAND & GRAVEL
    Surface metal/non-metal · Vulcan Constr. Materials, L.P. · MSHA ID 1101239
    Abandoned
  6. Foster Road Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · East Riverdale Gravel Company · MSHA ID 1102871
    Abandoned
  7. Foster Road Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Beverly Materials LLC · MSHA ID 1103074
    Abandoned
  8. Frams Material Company
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dealers Ready Mix Company · MSHA ID 1101908
    Abandoned
  9. GREEN VALLEY EAST GATE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Petersen Sand & Gravel Inc. · MSHA ID 1101692
    Abandoned
  10. H & H GRAVEL
    Surface metal/non-metal · H & H Gravel · MSHA ID 1102922
    Abandoned
  11. HAMPSHIRE SAND & GRAVEL INC.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hampshire Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 1102264
    Abandoned
  12. Harvard Pit & Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Harvard Ready Mix Inc · MSHA ID 1101127
    Abandoned
  13. Holcim Algonquin Pit #5
    Surface metal/non-metal · Holcim - MAMR, Inc. · MSHA ID 1101170
    Abandoned
  14. Huntley
    Surface metal/non-metal · Northern Materials Inc · MSHA ID 1103151
    Abandoned
  15. Jacobs Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Morris Gravel & Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 1102261
    Abandoned
  16. L & M PORTABLE
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & M Joint Venture · MSHA ID 1102926
    Abandoned
  17. Lily Pond Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bakley Construction Corp · MSHA ID 1102995
    Abandoned
  18. Linden Lakes
    Surface metal/non-metal · Linden Lakes · MSHA ID 1103113
    Abandoned
  19. Marengo Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Road Materials Corp · MSHA ID 1102260
    Abandoned
  20. MARENGO PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Elmhurst-Chicago Stone · MSHA ID 1101137
    Abandoned
  21. Marengo Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · O'Leary Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 1102949
    Abandoned
  22. McGuire Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · McGuire Aggregates, Inc. · MSHA ID 1103244
    Abandoned
  23. Merryman Aggregates
    Surface metal/non-metal · Merryman Aggregates LLC · MSHA ID 1103202
    Abandoned
  24. Meyer Material Company - Harvard Pit #11
    Surface metal/non-metal · Meyer Material Company · MSHA ID 1102648
    Abandoned
  25. Meyer Material Company -Big Foot Yard 14
    Surface metal/non-metal · Meyer Material Company · MSHA ID 1102930
    Abandoned
  26. Meyer Material Company-Preco Pit 12
    Surface metal/non-metal · Meyer Material Company · MSHA ID 1102853
    Abandoned
  27. Pistakee Sand & Gravel Co
    Surface metal/non-metal · Pistakee Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 1102075
    Abandoned
  28. Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Soil Rite Corp · MSHA ID 1102899
    Abandoned
  29. Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · O'Leary Excavating · MSHA ID 1102937
    Abandoned
  30. Possum Run Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Meyer Material Company · MSHA ID 1101166
    Abandoned
  31. PYOTT ROAD
    Surface metal/non-metal · K R Chellberg Inc · MSHA ID 1103050
    Abandoned
  32. RAVEN PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Reliable Sand & Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 1101311
    Abandoned
  33. Reiland Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chain O Lakes Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 1101072
    Abandoned
  34. Rocky Road Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Herky'S Trucking Inc · MSHA ID 1102739
    Abandoned
  35. Rose Farm Road Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · O'Leary Construction Company · MSHA ID 1102262
    Abandoned
  36. Spring Lake Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Spring Lake Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 1102898
    Abandoned
  37. Union Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · D & Z Transfer Inc · MSHA ID 1102265
    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
Gravel Pit 91
Gravel Pit 80
Disturbed Surface - Pit 7
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 6
Disturbed Surface 4
Quarry 3
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.