Abandoned mines in Itasca County, Minnesota

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   2 0.4%
2. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   63 13.2%
3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   209 43.9%
4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   202 42.4%

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.

1. Arcturus Mill

   Facility metal/non-metal · United States Steel Corp · MSHA ID 2100817
   Abandoned 1983-06-27
2. Arcturus Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · United States Steel Corp · MSHA ID 2100279
   Abandoned 1983-06-27
3. Brinks Pit And Mill

   Surface metal/non-metal · Hawkinson Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102625
   Abandoned 1980-08-21
4. Butler Taconite (Plant)

   Facility metal/non-metal · M A Hanna Company · MSHA ID 2100814
   Abandoned 1985-08-23
5. Butler Taconite Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · M A Hanna Company · MSHA ID 2100807
   Abandoned 1985-08-23
6. Canisteo

   Surface metal/non-metal · E W Coons Company · MSHA ID 2102812
   Abandoned 1982-09-01
7. Canisteo Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company · MSHA ID 2100237
   Abandoned 1982-02-25
8. Casper Pit

   Surface metal/non-metal · Casper Construction Company · MSHA ID 2101826
   Abandoned 1979-03-02
9. Crusher

   Surface metal/non-metal · B T C Inc · MSHA ID 2102479
   Abandoned 2019-06-19
10. Darland Sand & Gravel LLC

    Surface metal/non-metal · Darland Sand & Gravel LLC · MSHA ID 2103541
    Abandoned 2008-07-17
11. ERP Iron Ore-Bovey Plant

    Surface metal/non-metal · ERP Iron Ore, LLC · MSHA ID 2103767
    Abandoned 2017-04-27
12. Hanna Pit And Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · Ulland Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 2102381
    Abandoned 1979-11-23
13. Hanna Research Center

    Facility metal/non-metal · M A Hanna Company · MSHA ID 2100815
    Abandoned 1992-01-13
14. Hill Lake Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Troumbly Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 2100630
    Abandoned 2014-05-06
15. Hwy 38 Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Trout Enterprises, Inc. · MSHA ID 2103367
    Abandoned 2020-12-01
16. J & L Hill Annex

    Surface metal/non-metal · Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp · MSHA ID 2100250
    Abandoned 1981-06-19
17. Kolberg Screening Plant

    Surface metal/non-metal · Hardrives Inc · MSHA ID 2103376
    Abandoned 2017-04-20
18. Koss Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Ken Sons Services · MSHA ID 2102910
    Abandoned 1983-11-01
19. Lind Greenway

    Surface metal/non-metal · Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp · MSHA ID 2100252
    Abandoned 1982-11-01
20. Lundquist Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Beckers Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102741
    Abandoned 1981-05-12
21. Mesabi Chief 3

    Surface metal/non-metal · ERP Iron Ore, LLC · MSHA ID 2103655
    Abandoned 2017-04-27
22. Myers Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Ron-Ex · MSHA ID 2103429
    Abandoned 2008-08-06
23. Nick's Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Nicks Sand and Gravel, LLC · MSHA ID 2103788
    Abandoned 2019-06-18
24. Plant 4

    Surface metal/non-metal · ERP Iron Ore, LLC · MSHA ID 2103817
    Abandoned 2018-05-02
25. Plummer Mill

    Facility metal/non-metal · United States Steel Corp · MSHA ID 2100821
    Abandoned 1978-08-10
26. Plummer Pit And Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · Komatz Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2102495
    Abandoned 1979-01-01
27. Portable Plant

    Surface metal/non-metal · Itasca County · MSHA ID 2103733
    Abandoned 2013-09-13
28. Prairie River Minerals Plant & Loadout

    Surface metal/non-metal · Prairie River Minerals, LLC · MSHA ID 2103971
    Abandoned 2022-08-31
29. Research Laboratory

    Facility metal/non-metal · United States Steel Corp · MSHA ID 2102648
    Abandoned 1986-07-10
30. Schwartz PRM Crusher

    Surface metal/non-metal · William J Schwartz & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 2102911
    Abandoned 2022-08-18
31. Screen Plant

    Surface metal/non-metal · Hammerlund Construction · MSHA ID 2103728
    Abandoned 2017-04-20
32. Screener

    Surface metal/non-metal · Mallum Hauling Inc · MSHA ID 2103635
    Abandoned 2014-07-25
33. Screener

    Surface metal/non-metal · Ryhti Construction and Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 2103686
    Abandoned 2012-04-09
34. Sorring Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Anderson Brothers Construction Company · MSHA ID 2102650
    Abandoned 1981-06-19
35. Spokane Crusher

    Surface metal/non-metal · Hardrives Inc · MSHA ID 2103375
    Abandoned 2005-04-05
36. Swanson Pit And Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · W Hodgman & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 2102565
    Abandoned 1979-01-15
37. U S Plummer Or Plummer-Canisteo Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Rhude & Fryberger Inc · MSHA ID 2100283
    Abandoned 1985-10-08
38. Unit 98 Crusher

    Surface metal/non-metal · Rajala Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102681
    Abandoned 1995-03-31

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

• St. Louis County 1,561
• Stearns County 373
• Otter Tail County 353
• Dakota County 275
• Pine County 247
• Wright County 226
• Lake County 224
• Crow Wing County 191
• Beltrami County 191
• Cass County 189
• Aitkin County 188
• Morrison County 186

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.