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Abandoned mines › Minnesota
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Stearns County, Minnesota

Stearns County, Minnesota has 373 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1950–1993. MSHA's register carries 41 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Stearns 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)
373
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
41
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits38 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
    9 2.4%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    364 97.6%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned41 on register
  1. 001963
    Surface metal/non-metal · Minnesota Paving & Materials · MSHA ID 2103266
    Abandoned
  2. 001964
    Surface metal/non-metal · Minnesota Paving & Materials · MSHA ID 2103628
    Abandoned
  3. 4048 Recycle Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Stommes Construction Inc. · MSHA ID 2103794
    Abandoned
  4. 43301
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knife River North Central · MSHA ID 2102492
    Abandoned
  5. 44480
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knife River North Central · MSHA ID 2102969
    Abandoned
  6. 44481
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knife River North Central · MSHA ID 2100596
    Abandoned
  7. 45423
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knife River Corporation-North Central · MSHA ID 2103644
    Abandoned
  8. 45505
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knife River North Central · MSHA ID 2100587
    Abandoned
  9. 543 Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Stommes Construction · MSHA ID 2101504
    Abandoned
  10. Cedar Rapids Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Thull Construction · MSHA ID 2103254
    Abandoned
  11. Cedar Rapids Screener
    Surface metal/non-metal · Stearns Aggregate · MSHA ID 2103665
    Abandoned
  12. CEDAR RAPIDS WASH PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Stommes Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2103009
    Abandoned
  13. Charcoal Gray Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cold Spring Granite Company · MSHA ID 2100018
    Abandoned
  14. Christle Sand & Gravel Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · Christie Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2102976
    Abandoned
  15. CR 765 Portable
    Surface metal/non-metal · Randy Kramer Exc. Inc. · MSHA ID 2103325
    Abandoned
  16. Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mid Continent Asphalt · MSHA ID 2103258
    Abandoned
  17. Crushing Plant
    Facility metal/non-metal · Cold Spring Granite Company · MSHA ID 2100136
    Abandoned
  18. Crystal Gray Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cold Spring Granite Company · MSHA ID 2100019
    Abandoned
  19. Diamond Pink Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cold Spring Granite Company · MSHA ID 2100020
    Abandoned
  20. ELJAY WASH PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Stommes Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2103313
    Abandoned
  21. Gertken Portable Crusher #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ralphs Excavating Company · MSHA ID 2103028
    Abandoned
  22. JCI Screen Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Thull Construction · MSHA ID 2103359
    Abandoned
  23. Kotzer Excavating Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kotzer Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 2103622
    Abandoned
  24. Krippner Trucking and Exc Cone crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Krippner Trucking and Excavating · MSHA ID 4703275
    Abandoned
  25. Lahr Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ilgen Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 2104058
    Abandoned
  26. Midcon Paving Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · Midcon Paving Inc · MSHA ID 2101742
    Abandoned
  27. MN Portable Crusher (A5574 Cone)
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cemstone Products Co. · MSHA ID 2103853
    Abandoned
  28. Portable Cedar Rapids
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hardrives Inc · MSHA ID 2101578
    Abandoned
  29. PORTABLE CONE PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Stommes Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2102901
    Abandoned
  30. Portable Crusher II
    Surface metal/non-metal · Annandale Rock Products Inc · MSHA ID 2103154
    Abandoned
  31. Power Screener
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tri-County Aggregate Inc. · MSHA ID 2103388
    Abandoned
  32. ROCKVILLE #1 QUARRY
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cold Spring Granite Company · MSHA ID 2100022
    Abandoned
  33. Rockville Shop
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cold Spring Granite Company · MSHA ID 2101749
    Abandoned
  34. Small Crusher Herdering Inc.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Herdering Inc. · MSHA ID 2103300
    Abandoned
  35. St Joseph Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Starry Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102580
    Abandoned
  36. Stearns Aggregate-Portable Unit #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Randy Kramer Exc. Inc. · MSHA ID 2103053
    Abandoned
  37. Stommes Stearns County Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Starry Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102579
    Abandoned
  38. Telsmith 485 Cone Crusher Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Thull Construction · MSHA ID 2103360
    Abandoned
  39. Waite Park Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hardrives Inc · MSHA ID 2102977
    Abandoned
  40. Waite Park Pit 059
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cemstone Products Co. · MSHA ID 2103735
    Abandoned
  41. WASH PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hardrives Inc · MSHA ID 2103268
    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 266
Gravel Pit 55
Quarry 28
Quarry 8
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 4
Disturbed Surface - Pit 4
Marl Pit 3
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 3
Disturbed Surface 1
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 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.