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Abandoned mines › Massachusetts
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Norfolk County, Massachusetts

Norfolk County, Massachusetts has 213 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1936–1979; 2 of the features carry a name on the map. MSHA's register carries 32 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Norfolk 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)
213
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
32
2 features carry a name0 prospect pits11 quadrangle maps, published 1936–1979 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
    8 3.8%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    205 96.2%
Named features on the maps2 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Wendell Quarry Quarry
Wendells Quarry Quarry

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.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned32 on register
  1. 200 UNIVERSITY AVENUE
    Facility metal/non-metal · D.W. WHITE CONSTRUCTION, INC. · MSHA ID 1901243
    Abandoned
  2. A A WILL CANTON PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · A A Will Sand & Gravel Corp · MSHA ID 1900275
    Abandoned
  3. Bates Brothers
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bates Brothers Seam-Face Granite Company · MSHA ID 1900462
    Abandoned
  4. Braintree Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · A Graziano Inc · MSHA ID 1900588
    Abandoned
  5. Dedham Sand And Gravel Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lorusso Corp · MSHA ID 1900416
    Abandoned
  6. Farnham Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Sharon · MSHA ID 1900817
    Abandoned
  7. FORTUNE BLVD.
    Surface metal/non-metal · B M S Land & Development · MSHA ID 1901066
    Abandoned
  8. FOSTER/SOUTHEASTERN
    Surface metal/non-metal · Foster/Southeastern Inc · MSHA ID 1900578
    Abandoned
  9. Franklin Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Simeone Corp · MSHA ID 1900702
    Abandoned
  10. Highway Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Bellingham · MSHA ID 1900679
    Abandoned
  11. J F Price Company Sand And Gravel Mine A
    Surface metal/non-metal · J F Price Company · MSHA ID 1900552
    Abandoned
  12. Liberty Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Weymouth · MSHA ID 1900776
    Abandoned
  13. Medway Pit And Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sam White & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 1900649
    Abandoned
  14. Millis Pit And Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sam White & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 1900704
    Abandoned
  15. Murphy Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Stoughton · MSHA ID 1900813
    Abandoned
  16. Norfolk Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · S M Lorusso & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 1900346
    Abandoned
  17. Old Colony Crushed Stone & Construction
    Surface metal/non-metal · Old Colony Crushed Stone & Construction Co Inc · MSHA ID 1900032
    Abandoned
  18. Plainville Sand And Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lorusso Corp · MSHA ID 1900472
    Abandoned
  19. PORTABLE CRUSHER
    Surface metal/non-metal · Nationwide Rock & Recycling · MSHA ID 1901101
    Abandoned
  20. Portable Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · AA Will Sand and Gravel Corp · MSHA ID 1901081
    Abandoned
  21. Quincy Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bates Realty Trust · MSHA ID 1900608
    Abandoned
  22. Robbins Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Town Of Walpole · MSHA ID 1900888
    Abandoned
  23. S M Lorusso Portable Division
    Surface metal/non-metal · S M Lorusso & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 1901039
    Abandoned
  24. Sharon Loam Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sansone Brothers · MSHA ID 1900609
    Abandoned
  25. Stoughton Mix Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Simeone Stone Corp · MSHA ID 1900041
    Abandoned
  26. Stoughton Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · A A Will Materials Corp · MSHA ID 1900404
    Abandoned
  27. STOUGHTON QUARRY
    Surface metal/non-metal · T L Edwards Inc · MSHA ID 1901061
    Abandoned
  28. THOMAS W. DIPLACIDO CORP.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Thomas W Di Placido Corp · MSHA ID 1901067
    Abandoned
  29. VARNEY BROS. SAND & GRAVEL, INC.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Varney Bros. Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 1900365
    Abandoned
  30. Walpole Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bates Brothers Seam-Face Granite Company · MSHA ID 1900002
    Abandoned
  31. Wrentham Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lewicki Bros · MSHA ID 1900873
    Abandoned
  32. WRENTHAM SAND AND GRAVEL
    Surface metal/non-metal · S M Lorusso & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 1900378
    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 99
Gravel Pit 43
Quarry 24
Quarry 18
Borrow Pit 7
Sand and Gravel Pit 6
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 5
Sand and Gravel Pit 4
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 2
Disturbed Surface 2
Sand Pit 1
Clay Pit 1
Disturbed Surface - Pit 1
Other counties in MassachusettsAll 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.