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Abandoned mines › Minnesota
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Steele County, Minnesota

Steele County, Minnesota has 102 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1962–1967. 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 Steele 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)
102
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
32
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits12 quadrangle maps, published 1962–1967 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    102 100.0%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned32 on register
  1. #0876 Dundas Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern MN Construction · MSHA ID 2100876
    Abandoned
  2. #2001 Screener
    Surface metal/non-metal · JJD Companies LLC · MSHA ID 2103970
    Abandoned
  3. #408 Superior Wash Plant Hope
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern Minnesota Construction Company, Inc. · MSHA ID 2103061
    Abandoned
  4. 01971
    Surface metal/non-metal · Minnesota Paving & Materials · MSHA ID 2103385
    Abandoned
  5. Bisterfield Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Slama Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 2102398
    Abandoned
  6. Cedarapids Cone Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tri-County Aggregate Inc. · MSHA ID 2103506
    Abandoned
  7. Crusher 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · JJD Companies LLC · MSHA ID 2103933
    Abandoned
  8. Johnson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Helgeson Construction · MSHA ID 2102796
    Abandoned
  9. Jones Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · W Hodgman & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 2102841
    Abandoned
  10. Kielmeyer Steele County S & G
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kielmeyer Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2101847
    Abandoned
  11. Larson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lundin Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102714
    Abandoned
  12. Lemond Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · David Spinler Construction Company · MSHA ID 2102884
    Abandoned
  13. Lundin Quarry Fretham Location
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lundin Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102476
    Abandoned
  14. Lundin Quarry Or Cashman Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lundin Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2100556
    Abandoned
  15. Medford Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern MN Construction · MSHA ID 2100579
    Abandoned
  16. OWATONNA PORTABLE #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crane Creek Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2103111
    Abandoned
  17. Owatonna Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta Materials Inc. · MSHA ID 2103609
    Abandoned
  18. Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Owatonna Construction Co. · MSHA ID 2103072
    Abandoned
  19. Portable #3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Owatonna Construction Co. · MSHA ID 2103199
    Abandoned
  20. Portable #4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Owatonna Construction Co. · MSHA ID 2103214
    Abandoned
  21. PORTABLE #5
    Surface metal/non-metal · Owatonna Construction Co. · MSHA ID 2103216
    Abandoned
  22. Portable #6
    Surface metal/non-metal · Owatonna Construction Co. · MSHA ID 2103217
    Abandoned
  23. Portable Crusher #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Integrity Material Sales Inc · MSHA ID 2103757
    Abandoned
  24. Portable Crusher #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Integrity Material Sales Inc · MSHA ID 2103828
    Abandoned
  25. PORTABLE Missouri Rodgers jaw crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Don Loken Drainage, Inc. · MSHA ID 2103756
    Abandoned
  26. Portable Trio Jaw
    Surface metal/non-metal · Integrity Material Sales Inc · MSHA ID 2104016
    Abandoned
  27. Power Screener
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tri-County Aggregate · MSHA ID 2103577
    Abandoned
  28. Rostal Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lundin Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2102749
    Abandoned
  29. Screener 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cook Construction LLC · MSHA ID 2103857
    Abandoned
  30. Severson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ulland Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 2101064
    Abandoned
  31. Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tri-County Aggregate Inc · MSHA ID 2103462
    Abandoned
  32. Wrander Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · David Spinler Construction Company · MSHA ID 2102546
    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 74
Gravel Pit 26
Quarry 1
Sand 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.