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Abandoned mines › Montana
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Roosevelt County, Montana

Roosevelt County, Montana has 139 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1912–1989, including 5 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts) and 32 prospect pits; 1 of the features carry a name on the map. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 59 problems in the county, 14 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 9 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Roosevelt 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)
139
Mine openings
5
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
14
MSHA mines marked abandoned
9
1 features carry a name32 prospect pits38 quadrangle maps, published 1912–1989 59 OSMRE problems, 45 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
    22 11.1%
  2. Prospect pits and trenches
    shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
    32 16.2%
  3. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    13 6.6%
  4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    89 44.9%
  5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    7 3.5%
  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
    34 17.2%
Named features on the maps1 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Alton Mine Adit

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 problems59 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Alton Mine P1 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Alton Mine P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Alton Mine P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Bruegger Mine P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Coal Mine Hills P3 Mine Opening In Reclamation
Coal Mine Hills P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Culbertson Ii P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Damm Mine Subsidence P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
EW Chase P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Gobbs P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Gobbs P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Hidden P1 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Hidden P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Hidden P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Hidden P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Hollow Ranch P1 Subsidence In Reclamation
Krueger P1 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Krueger P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Krueger P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Lanark Mine P1 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Magnan Mine P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Magnan Mine P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann North P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann North P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann North P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann North P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Mc Cann North P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann North P3 Water Problems Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann South P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann South P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann South P3 Equipment Facility Reclamation Completed
Mc Cann South P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Mccone P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Mccone P1 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Mccone P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Mccone P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Norduane P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Norduane P2 Subsidence In Reclamation
Norduane P2 Vertical Openings In Reclamation
Norduane P3 Slump Reclamation Completed
North Culbertson P1 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
North Culbertson P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
North Culbertson P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Rassmussen P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Richards P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Royan P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Royan P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Schledwitz P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Schledwitz P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Schledwitz P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Schledwitz P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Simm-gilligan Mine P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Triplett P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Triplett P3 Other Reclamation Completed
Triplett P3 Water Problems Reclamation Completed
Willie Larson P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Willie Larson P2 Subsidence In Reclamation
Willie Larson P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Willie Larson P2 Vertical Openings 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 Abandoned9 on register
  1. 1974 Kolberg Screening Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Montana Department Of Transportation · MSHA ID 2402028
    Abandoned
  2. 1986 707 Kolman Pugmill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Montana Department Of Transportation · MSHA ID 2402010
    Abandoned
  3. Apollo Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · Apollo Inc · MSHA ID 2402527
    Abandoned
  4. CP-1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Storbakken & Sons Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3201020
    Abandoned
  5. Gratech Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gratech Company, LLC · MSHA ID 3200748
    Abandoned
  6. Plant #2 (#4666-04)
    Surface metal/non-metal · Waste Management of North Dakota, Inc · MSHA ID 2402670
    Abandoned
  7. Portable #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Concord Field Services, LLC · MSHA ID 2402580
    Abandoned
  8. Various
    Surface metal/non-metal · Roosevelt County · MSHA ID 2402034
    Abandoned
  9. Walrath Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · T E Walrath Trucking Inc · MSHA ID 4503427
    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 71
Prospect Pit 32
P2 Subsidence 22
Gravel Pit 9
P2 Portals 9
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 8
P2 Vertical Openings 7
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 7
P1 Subsidence 6
Adit 5
P3 Spoil Area 4
Coal Mine 3
P3 Water Problems 2
Scoria Pit 2
P3 Gobs 1
P1 Vertical Openings 1
Open Pit Mine 1
Disturbed Surface 1
P1 Hazardous Equip & Facilities 1
P3 Equipment Facility 1
P3 Mine Opening 1
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 1
P3 Slump 1
P3 Other 1
P1 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 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.