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

Abandoned mines in Dakota County, Minnesota

Dakota County, Minnesota has 275 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1950–1993. MSHA's register carries 26 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Dakota 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)
275
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
26
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits28 quadrangle maps, published 1950–1993 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
    15 5.5%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    260 94.5%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned26 on register
  1. Apple Valley Pit #780
    Surface metal/non-metal · Barton Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2102698
    Abandoned
  2. Casperson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · River Warren Aggregates Inc · MSHA ID 2100590
    Abandoned
  3. Crusher #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Danner Inc · MSHA ID 2103016
    Abandoned
  4. Dakota Aggregates Grubbing & Grading
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dakota Aggregates LLC · MSHA ID 2103669
    Abandoned
  5. Dakota Aggregates Grubbing & Grading #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dakota Aggregates, LLC · MSHA ID 2103800
    Abandoned
  6. Dragline #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dakota Aggregates · MSHA ID 2103832
    Abandoned
  7. East Rosemount Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Solberg Aggregate Inc. · MSHA ID 2100614
    Abandoned
  8. Empire Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hedberg Aggregates · MSHA ID 2102980
    Abandoned
  9. Eureka Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Eureka Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2103167
    Abandoned
  10. Kielmeyer Dakota County S & G
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kielmeyer Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2101460
    Abandoned
  11. Knopik Crushing Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knopik Crushing Inc · MSHA ID 2103647
    Abandoned
  12. Kraemer Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Edward Kraemer & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 2100508
    Abandoned
  13. LAKEVILLE WEST PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Camas Minnesota · MSHA ID 2102408
    Abandoned
  14. M V A Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Davies Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 2101855
    Abandoned
  15. Mac #6
    Surface metal/non-metal · Midwest Asphalt Corporation · MSHA ID 2103434
    Abandoned
  16. Markham Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Markham Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2102500
    Abandoned
  17. Peerless Washplant #3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Aggregate Industries - MWR, Inc. · MSHA ID 2103227
    Abandoned
  18. PIT 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Holst Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 2102955
    Abandoned
  19. PORTABLE CRUSHER
    Surface metal/non-metal · Max Steininger Inc · MSHA ID 2103175
    Abandoned
  20. Portable Crusher #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Davies Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 2102747
    Abandoned
  21. Portable Crusher #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dakota Aggregates LLC · MSHA ID 2103792
    Abandoned
  22. Rosemount Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hardrives Inc · MSHA ID 2100608
    Abandoned
  23. Sand & Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Barton Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2100472
    Abandoned
  24. Screening Plant #4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cemstone Products Co · MSHA ID 2103681
    Abandoned
  25. Standard Building Material S & G
    Surface metal/non-metal · Standard Building Material Company · MSHA ID 2100620
    Abandoned
  26. Windmill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Eureka Sand and Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2103603
    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 141
Gravel Pit 88
Sand Pit 8
Disturbed Surface - Pit 7
Quarry 7
Disturbed Surface 6
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 4
Quarry 4
Sand Pit 3
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 2
Sand and Gravel Pit 2
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 2
Clay Pit 1
Other counties in MinnesotaAll 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.