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Abandoned mines › Montana
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Gallatin County, Montana

Gallatin County, Montana has 195 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1949–2000, including 26 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts) and 65 prospect pits; 30 of the features carry a name on the map. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 22 problems in the county, 2 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 29 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Gallatin 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)
195
Mine openings
26
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
2
MSHA mines marked abandoned
29
30 features carry a name65 prospect pits38 quadrangle maps, published 1949–2000 22 OSMRE problems, 20 reclaimed 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mine openings
    shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
    30 13.8%
  2. Prospect pits and trenches
    shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
    65 30.0%
  3. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    30 13.8%
  4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    72 33.2%
  5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    6 2.8%
  6. Mills, tipples and facilities
    processing plants and hazardous structures
    1 0.5%
  7. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    13 6.0%
Named features on the maps30 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Anaconda Copper Mines Adit
Anaconda Copper Mines Prospect Pit
Asbestos Mine Open Pit Mine
Corundum Mine Open Pit Mine
Corundum Mine Open Pit Mine
Coulston Mine Adit
Coulston Mine Prospect Pit
Five Mine Adit
Five Mine Prospect Pit
Harrison Mine Adit
Harrison Mine Prospect Pit
Ingleside Quarry Quarry
Johnson Mine Open Pit Mine
Mica Mine Open Pit Mine
Mica Mine Open Pit Mine
Miller Mine Adit
Miller Mine Prospect Pit
Mountainside Mine Adit
Mountainside Mine Prospect Pit
Murphy Mine Adit
Murphy Mine Prospect Pit
Number Four Mine Adit
Ross Mine Adit
Ross Mine Open Pit Mine
Stinking Water Mine Adit
Storrs Mine Adit
Upper Ross Mine Adit
Upper Ross Mine Prospect Pit
Woodland Mine Adit
Woodland Mine Prospect Pit

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.

OSMRE abandoned mine land problems22 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Coulston P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
DanMor Gypsum Mine P1 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Gallatin Gateway Gravel Pit P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Gallatin Locales P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Gallatin Locales P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Karst Asbestos P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Pending
Karst Asbestos P2 Industrial/Residential Waste Reclamation Pending
Meadow Creek P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Mountainside P2 Polluted Water: Agricultural & Industrial Reclamation Completed
Mountainside P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Mountainside P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
No. 5 P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Number 4 P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Number 4 P3 Mine Opening Reclamation Completed
Number 4 P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Number 4 P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Ross P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Thompson # 2 P2 Clogged Stream Lands Reclamation Completed
Timberline Creek P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Timberline Creek P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Upper Ross P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Woodland P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed

Problem types carry OSMRE's priority prefix: P1 and P2 are threats to health, safety and property, P3 is environmental. A problem area is a cluster of problems reclaimed as one project; several rows can share one location.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned29 on register
  1. 3 Rivers Aggregate LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Three Rivers Aggregate LLC · MSHA ID 2402426
    Abandoned
  2. Asphalt LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Asphalt LLC · MSHA ID 2402480
    Abandoned
  3. Balke Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Figgins Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2400959
    Abandoned
  4. Bozeman Sand & Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Midland O'Leary Inc · MSHA ID 2401214
    Abandoned
  5. Cazier Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Barnard Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2401806
    Abandoned
  6. CN Portable 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Childs and Nicholls, LLC · MSHA ID 2402666
    Abandoned
  7. Crazy Mountain Rock Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crazy Mountain Rock Inc · MSHA ID 2402282
    Abandoned
  8. Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kenyon Noble Ready Mix · MSHA ID 2401462
    Abandoned
  9. FAB TEC
    Surface metal/non-metal · A M Welles Inc · MSHA ID 2402061
    Abandoned
  10. Fab Tec Portable Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bates Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2402082
    Abandoned
  11. Figgins Portable Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Knife River Belgrade · MSHA ID 2401939
    Abandoned
  12. Gabriel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gallatin County Road Department · MSHA ID 2400010
    Abandoned
  13. Gallatin Granite
    Surface metal/non-metal · Scott L Koelzer Masonry LLC · MSHA ID 2402562
    Abandoned
  14. Gardner Sand & Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gardner Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2400794
    Abandoned
  15. Highline Road Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kenyon Noble Ready Mix · MSHA ID 2402338
    Abandoned
  16. Huttinga Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Huttinga Contracting, Inc. · MSHA ID 2402314
    Abandoned
  17. J & S PORTABLE CRUSHER
    Surface metal/non-metal · J & S Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2402131
    Abandoned
  18. Johnson Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Alder Gulch Trucking Company · MSHA ID 2401580
    Abandoned
  19. MDG Portable 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Minerals Development Group LLC · MSHA ID 2402674
    Abandoned
  20. Montana Talc Company
    Facility metal/non-metal · Montana Talc Company · MSHA ID 2401809
    Abandoned
  21. Pioneer Impact Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Smith Contracting Inc. · MSHA ID 2402422
    Abandoned
  22. Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert V Burggraf Company Inc · MSHA ID 2401817
    Abandoned
  23. PORTABLE SCREEN PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Jim Bryson Trucking Inc · MSHA ID 2402191
    Abandoned
  24. River Gravel LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · River Gravel LLC · MSHA ID 2402478
    Abandoned
  25. SCREEN 63-4173
    Surface metal/non-metal · Montana Department Of Transportation · MSHA ID 2402003
    Abandoned
  26. Silica Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Janney Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2401464
    Abandoned
  27. Stone Recovery Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Big Sky Masonary Stone Inc · MSHA ID 2402482
    Abandoned
  28. TMC KOLBERG SCREEN
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tmc Inc · MSHA ID 2402076
    Abandoned
  29. Trident Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ideal Basic Industries-Cement Division · MSHA ID 2401507
    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
Prospect Pit 65
Gravel Pit 40
Gravel Pit 28
Adit 23
Open Pit Mine 17
P2 Subsidence 6
Open Pit Mine 6
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 5
Mine Shaft 3
Quarry 3
P2 Vertical Openings 2
Mine Dump 2
P3 Spoil Area 2
P2 Portals 2
Disturbed Surface 2
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 1
P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities 1
P2 Dangerous Highwalls 1
Quarry 1
P1 Subsidence 1
P2 Polluted Water: Agricultural & Industrial 1
P3 Pits 1
P3 Mine Opening 1
P2 Clogged Stream Lands 1
P2 Industrial/Residential Waste 1
P3 Gobs 1
Other counties in MontanaAll 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.