Abandoned mines in Vermilion County, Illinois

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   81 28.8%
2. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   69 24.6%
3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   22 7.8%
4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   48 17.1%
5. Mills, tipples and facilities

   processing plants and hazardous structures
   5 1.8%
6. Other reclamation problems

   highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
   56 19.9%

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.

…and 23 more problems not listed here.

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. Allison Sand & Gravel Company

   Surface metal/non-metal · Allison Gravel Company · MSHA ID 1102867
   Abandoned 1994-05-12
2. Asc Mineral Processing

   Facility metal/non-metal · Allerton Supply Company · MSHA ID 1102920
   Abandoned 1994-06-23
3. BUSH GRAVEL

   Surface metal/non-metal · Bush Gravel · MSHA ID 1101302
   Abandoned 1998-01-01
4. Calefy Mine

   Underground coal · Coal Producers Inc · MSHA ID 1102645
   Abandoned and Sealed 1981-11-15
5. Calefy Surface

   Surface coal · Coal Producers Inc · MSHA ID 1201650
   Abandoned 1978-06-01
6. Deep Valley Ug

   Underground coal · Deep Valley Coal Company · MSHA ID 1100574
   Abandoned 1971-06-28
7. Energy Mine No 1

   Surface coal · Gibbs Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 1508231
   Abandoned 1977-03-28
8. Fairmount Plant

   Surface metal/non-metal · Mid-America Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 1102897
   Abandoned 1993-05-04
9. FINE GRIND LIME CO.

   Facility metal/non-metal · Fine Grind Lime Inc · MSHA ID 1102890
   Abandoned 2000-12-18
10. Hickory Grove Sand & Gravel

    Surface metal/non-metal · Big O Inc · MSHA ID 1103010
    Abandoned 2006-06-12
11. Hilmar Gravel Company-Lonnas Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Hilmar Gravel Company · MSHA ID 1102320
    Abandoned 1984-05-29
12. Ill Mine

    Underground coal · Ill & W Va Coal · MSHA ID 1102775
    Abandoned and Sealed 1985-03-28
13. KENN BARRICK-POTOMAC PIT

    Surface metal/non-metal · Kenn Barrick · MSHA ID 1102687
    Abandoned 2002-08-14
14. Lee Mine (Strip)

    Surface coal · Lee Coal Company · MSHA ID 1102414
    Abandoned 1982-12-02
15. National Gravel Company Incorporated

    Surface metal/non-metal · National Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 1102758
    Abandoned 1983-07-11
16. Perrysville Sand & Gravel

    Surface metal/non-metal · Big O Inc · MSHA ID 1102876
    Abandoned 2006-01-12
17. Potomac Gravel Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Potomac Gravel Company · MSHA ID 1101199
    Abandoned 1979-08-10
18. Riola Complex Vermilion Grove Portal

    Underground coal · Peabody Midwest Mining, LLC · MSHA ID 1103060
    Abandoned and Sealed 2017-08-15
19. Riola Mine Complex - Riola Portal

    Underground coal · Peabody Midwest Mining, LLC · MSHA ID 1102971
    Abandoned and Sealed 2009-07-13
20. V-Day Mine

    Underground coal · V-Day Mining Company · MSHA ID 1100624
    Abandoned 1977-08-25

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

• Will County 220
• LaSalle County 192
• McHenry County 191
• Winnebago County 187
• Kane County 184
• St. Clair County 136
• Hardin County 136
• Fulton County 131
• Stephenson County 127
• Williamson County 124
• Peoria County 122
• Cook County 114

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.