Mining Incidents
Search Operators Mines Alerts Research Controllers Fatalgrams About
Countries
Peru Chile
English Español
Abandoned mines › Illinois
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Randolph County, Illinois

Randolph County, Illinois has 63 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1914–1993, including 31 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts). OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 32 problems in the county, 6 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 20 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Randolph 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)
63
Mine openings
31
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
6
MSHA mines marked abandoned
20
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits9 quadrangle maps, published 1914–1993 32 OSMRE problems, 26 reclaimed 0 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
    38 40.0%
  2. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    20 21.1%
  3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    10 10.5%
  4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    7 7.4%
  5. Mills, tipples and facilities
    processing plants and hazardous structures
    3 3.2%
  6. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    17 17.9%
OSMRE abandoned mine land problems32 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Boyd Coal-coke Company P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
County Line Road Pits-randolph P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
County Line Road Pits-randolph P1 Dangerous Slides Reclamation Pending
County Line Road Pits-randolph P2 Hazardous Water Bodies Reclamation Pending
Crystal Mine P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Crystal Mine P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Gulf, Mobile & Ohio R.r. C.c. P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Herbert Beatty Pit P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Lemon Mine P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Moffat C.c. #1 P2 Clogged Stream Lands Reclamation Completed
Moffat C.c. #1 P2 Clogged Streams Reclamation Pending
Moffat C.c. #1 P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Moffat C.c. #1 P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Moffatt #2 C.c. P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Moffatt #2 C.c. P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Pre 87 P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Randolph County Line Road Sag P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Randolph County Line Road Sag P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Sparta C.c-florida Mine P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Sparta C.c-florida Mine P3 Equipment Facility Reclamation Completed
Sparta C.c-florida Mine P3 Mine Opening Reclamation Completed
Sparta C.c-florida Mine P3 Other Reclamation Completed
Sparta C.c-florida Mine P3 Slurry Reclamation Completed
Sparta C.c-florida Mine P3 Water Problems Reclamation Pending
Streamline Mine P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Streamline Mine P3 Haul Road Reclamation Completed
Streamline Mine P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Streamline Mine P3 Slurry Reclamation Completed
Streamline Mine P3 Water Problems Reclamation Pending
West Side C.c. Sparta Mine P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Willis No.1 C.c. P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Willis No.1 C.c. P3 Industrial/Residential Waste Reclamation Pending

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 Abandoned20 on register
  1. Baldwin Underground
    Facility coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1101008
    Abandoned
  2. Burning Star #3
    Surface coal · Consolidation Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100613
    Abandoned
  3. Chester Quarry
    Underground metal/non-metal · Chester Quarry Company Inc · MSHA ID 1100031
    Abandoned
  4. Cora Dock
    Facility coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1102404
    Abandoned
  5. Gateway Mine
    Facility coal · Peabody Midwest Mining, LLC · MSHA ID 1102408
    Abandoned
  6. Harger No 1 Strip
    Surface coal · Harger Coal Co · MSHA ID 1102375
    Abandoned
  7. Hopkins Hill
    Facility coal · Carbon Recovery Associates · MSHA ID 1102964
    Abandoned
  8. Jordan Grove CCW Fill Site
    Surface coal · Boral CM Holdings, LLC · MSHA ID 1103210
    Abandoned
  9. Kaskaskia Mine
    Underground metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. · MSHA ID 1100213
    Abandoned
  10. Kellogg Dock
    Facility coal · Consolidation Coal Company · MSHA ID 1101512
    Abandoned
  11. Kellogg Terminal
    Facility coal · Kellogg Terminal, LLC · MSHA ID 1103224
    Abandoned
  12. Prairie Du Rocher Mine
    Underground metal/non-metal · Mississippi Lime Company · MSHA ID 1100080
    Abandoned
  13. R & R Resources #1
    coal · R & R Resources Inc · MSHA ID 1102818
    Abandoned
  14. River King No 6
    Surface coal · Peabody Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100617
    Abandoned
  15. River Loading Dock
    Facility coal · Ford Dock Inc · MSHA ID 1102194
    Abandoned
  16. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS SAND CO., INC.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern Illinois Sand Company Inc · MSHA ID 1101343
    Abandoned
  17. Sparta No 6 Strip
    Surface coal · Southern Illinois Mineral Corp · MSHA ID 1102605
    Abandoned
  18. Spartan Mine
    Facility coal · Old Ben Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100612
    Abandoned
  19. Streamline Mine
    Surface coal · Arch Of Illinois · MSHA ID 1100614
    Abandoned
  20. Streamline Plant
    Facility coal · Mdc Of Illinois Inc · MSHA ID 1102902
    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
Adit 31
Strip Mine 11
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 8
P2 Vertical Openings 6
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 5
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 3
P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities 3
Quarry 3
P2 Subsidence 2
P3 Pits 2
P3 Slurry 2
P3 Water Problems 2
P3 Haul Road 1
Sand Pit 1
P2 Clogged Stream Lands 1
P2 Clogged Streams 1
Disturbed Surface - Pit 1
P3 Other 1
P3 Mine Opening 1
Mine Dump 1
Quarry 1
P3 Equipment Facility 1
P1 Dangerous Slides 1
P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 1
Mine Dump 1
P3 Industrial/Residential Waste 1
P3 Gobs 1
P1 Vertical Openings 1
P2 Hazardous Water Bodies 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.