Abandoned mines in Cherokee County, Kansas

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   190 19.8%
2. Prospect pits and trenches

   shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
   99 10.3%
3. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   101 10.5%
4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   7 0.7%
5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   397 41.4%
6. Mills, tipples and facilities

   processing plants and hazardous structures
   2 0.2%
7. Other reclamation problems

   highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
   163 17.0%

…and 242 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. Acme Pit

   Surface metal/non-metal · Acme Brick Company · MSHA ID 1400210
   Abandoned 2009-07-27
2. Ballard

   Surface metal/non-metal · Bingham Sand & Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 1401031
   Abandoned 1993-06-14
3. Bennett Sand & Gravel

   Surface metal/non-metal · Bennett Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 1401373
   Abandoned 1983-08-29
4. Bingham Shop

   Surface metal/non-metal · Bingham Sand & Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 1401029
   Abandoned 1989-03-24
5. Cherokee County Clay Pit

   Surface metal/non-metal · Cherokee County Clay · MSHA ID 1400224
   Abandoned 1990-06-04
6. Cherokee Limestone Quarry

   Surface metal/non-metal · Preston Construction Co., Inc. · MSHA ID 1401628
   Abandoned 2013-04-29
7. Cherokee Number 21

   Surface metal/non-metal · Midwest Minerals Inc · MSHA ID 1400862
   Abandoned 1985-07-11
8. Cherokee Quarry

   Surface metal/non-metal · Mulberry Limestone Quarry Company Inc. · MSHA ID 1401778
   Abandoned 2020-03-04
9. Eagle Portable Plant

   Surface metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. · MSHA ID 1401816
   Abandoned 2024-09-17
10. EARLY BIRD PORTABLE

    Surface metal/non-metal · BINGHAM SAND & GRAVEL CO INC · MSHA ID 1401765
    Abandoned 2018-05-30
11. Fleming Mine 19

    Facility coal · Ricci Mining LLC · MSHA ID 1401610
    Abandoned and Sealed 2010-01-26
12. G & Z No 1

    Surface coal · Donald Zimmerman Construction · MSHA ID 1401445
    Abandoned and Sealed 1989-09-26
13. Mc Cune Quarry

    Surface metal/non-metal · Kunshek Limestone Quarry · MSHA ID 1400608
    Abandoned 1978-07-13
14. No 19 Strip

    Surface coal · Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company · MSHA ID 1400234
    Abandoned 1975-02-11
15. ROBINSON

    Surface metal/non-metal · BINGHAM SAND & GRAVEL CO INC · MSHA ID 1401763
    Abandoned 2015-11-05
16. Screener

    Surface metal/non-metal · Crossland Construction Company · MSHA ID 1401755
    Abandoned 2013-05-24
17. Vinegar Hill-Barr

    Surface metal/non-metal · Southwest Rock & Chat Company Inc · MSHA ID 1401235
    Abandoned 1979-03-22
18. Wilber Sand & Gravel Pit & Plant

    Surface metal/non-metal · Bingham Sand & Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 1401030
    Abandoned 1988-04-05
19. Wilkinsons

    Surface coal · Wilkinson Inc · MSHA ID 1400246
    Abandoned 1981-06-25

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

• Crawford County 389
• Ellis County 295
• Lincoln County 195
• Bourbon County 148
• Osage County 142
• Rush County 139
• Russell County 138
• Cowley County 121
• Butler County 115
• Lane County 102
• Ness County 95
• Jewell County 84

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.