Abandoned mines in Powell County, Montana

1. Mine openings

   shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
   224 28.4%
2. Prospect pits and trenches

   shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
   414 52.5%
3. Mines and surface workings

   labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
   42 5.3%
4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits

   construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
   67 8.5%
5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob

   what mining left above ground
   20 2.5%
6. Mills, tipples and facilities

   processing plants and hazardous structures
   12 1.5%
7. Other reclamation problems

   highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
   10 1.3%

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.

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.

1. Adams Brothers Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · Adams Brothers Construction · MSHA ID 2401573
   Abandoned 1981-07-01
2. Bank Run Mines

   Surface metal/non-metal · T & B Mining Inc · MSHA ID 2401999
   Abandoned 1993-09-13
3. Big Sky Placer

   Surface metal/non-metal · Big Sky Georesources · MSHA ID 2401715
   Abandoned 1984-07-19
4. Douglas Phosphate

   Underground metal/non-metal · Douglas Phosphate Mine · MSHA ID 2401152
   Abandoned 1978-04-24
5. Dutton Project LLC

   Surface metal/non-metal · Dutton Project LLC · MSHA ID 2402322
   Abandoned 2005-06-06
6. Elliston Consolidated Group

   Underground metal/non-metal · Elliston Consolidated Mining Company · MSHA ID 2401679
   Abandoned 1983-09-28
7. Emory Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · Emory Group Inc · MSHA ID 2401626
   Abandoned 1984-05-07
8. Gold Creek Mine

   Surface metal/non-metal · Superior Western Corp · MSHA ID 2401736
   Abandoned 1990-02-08
9. Gold Creek Placer

   Surface metal/non-metal · GJC LLC · MSHA ID 2402656
   Abandoned 2014-11-18
10. Gold Rule Placer Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Golden Rule Placer Mining Inc. · MSHA ID 2402582
    Abandoned 2017-08-01
11. Golden Anchor

    Underground metal/non-metal · Bennie Sinerius · MSHA ID 2401602
    Abandoned 1982-08-24
12. Hot Spot

    Surface metal/non-metal · T & K Mining · MSHA ID 2401671
    Abandoned 1984-07-27
13. J.D.K. Construction Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · J.D.K. Construction · MSHA ID 2402439
    Abandoned 2006-05-30
14. Jefferson Creek Placer

    Surface metal/non-metal · Interstate Mining Inc · MSHA ID 2401582
    Abandoned 1981-09-03
15. Lavelet Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Lavelet Milling & Mining Company · MSHA ID 2401793
    Abandoned 1985-07-18
16. Lory #1 & #2

    Surface metal/non-metal · T & B Mining Inc · MSHA ID 2401641
    Abandoned 1983-10-15
17. Mary Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Bill Hurt Mining Corp · MSHA ID 2401674
    Abandoned 1985-07-09
18. Master Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Mining & Milling Corporation of America · MSHA ID 2402699
    Abandoned 2017-05-02
19. Mistake Placer

    Surface metal/non-metal · Copenhauer & Poggeman · MSHA ID 2401789
    Abandoned 1986-07-14
20. Nada

    Surface metal/non-metal · North American Development Association · MSHA ID 2401645
    Abandoned 1982-03-02
21. Nancy Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Long & Hurt Mining Company · MSHA ID 2401656
    Abandoned 1982-07-29
22. Nevahuck Mine Group

    Surface metal/non-metal · Bill Palmer · MSHA ID 2401740
    Abandoned 1984-06-28
23. Neversweat Placers

    Surface metal/non-metal · B B R Inc · MSHA ID 2402093
    Abandoned 1996-10-01
24. O-D PARTNERSHIP

    Surface metal/non-metal · O-D Partnership · MSHA ID 2402171
    Abandoned 1999-08-25
25. Ogden Placer

    Surface metal/non-metal · JMNC LLC · MSHA ID 2402615
    Abandoned 2012-12-06
26. Olsen Pit

    Surface metal/non-metal · Deer Lodge Asphalt Inc · MSHA ID 2402000
    Abandoned 2022-07-28
27. Pardner Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Everdale Thorton Construction · MSHA ID 2401738
    Abandoned 1988-08-12
28. Penieu Claim

    Surface metal/non-metal · Cliff Jacobson · MSHA ID 2401770
    Abandoned 1987-03-27
29. Platinan Tuataunto LLC

    Surface metal/non-metal · Platinan Tuataunto LLC · MSHA ID 2402449
    Abandoned 2007-01-01
30. Rabel Excavating Inc.

    Surface metal/non-metal · Rabel Excavating Inc. · MSHA ID 2402387
    Abandoned 2022-01-27
31. Relyea Mill

    Surface metal/non-metal · Relyea Mining · MSHA ID 2400150
    Abandoned 1984-10-03
32. Saturday Sunday

    Surface metal/non-metal · Saturday Sunday LLC · MSHA ID 2402525
    Abandoned 2008-07-24
33. Saxon Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Saxon Company · MSHA ID 2401622
    Abandoned 1982-03-02
34. Silver Apex

    Underground metal/non-metal · Joe Heisdorf Silver Apex · MSHA ID 2401428
    Abandoned 1980-09-04
35. Speiker Diggings

    Surface metal/non-metal · Image Inc · MSHA ID 2401722
    Abandoned 1984-07-16
36. Tomahawk Raineer Claims

    Surface metal/non-metal · Archie D Cameron · MSHA ID 2401786
    Abandoned 1985-07-12
37. Trommel

    Surface metal/non-metal · Randy Rice · MSHA ID 2402571
    Abandoned 2011-02-25
38. Victor 1 Mining Claim

    Surface metal/non-metal · James Durst · MSHA ID 2402659
    Abandoned 2015-02-18
39. Warm Springs Mine

    Underground metal/non-metal · Cominco American Inc · MSHA ID 2400146
    Abandoned 1994-02-28
40. WASH PLANT

    Surface metal/non-metal · Deer Lodge Asphalt Inc · MSHA ID 2402150
    Abandoned 1998-12-14
41. Washington Gulch Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Giguere Industries Inc · MSHA ID 2401545
    Abandoned 1989-07-17
42. Washington Gulch Mine

    Surface metal/non-metal · Washington Gulch L P Inc · MSHA ID 2402018
    Abandoned 1994-07-01
43. Weasel Gulch

    Surface metal/non-metal · Savage Mining Company, LLC · MSHA ID 2402677
    Abandoned 2015-02-18
44. Wine Glass

    Surface metal/non-metal · R & R Prospectors Inc · MSHA ID 2401600
    Abandoned 1982-04-16

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

• Madison County 3,766
• Silver Bow County 2,397
• Jefferson County 1,973
• Lewis and Clark County 1,862
• Broadwater County 1,418
• Beaverhead County 1,378
• Carbon County 769
• Granite County 719
• Cascade County 708
• Deer Lodge County 688
• Fergus County 550
• Meagher County 440

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.