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Abandoned mines › North Carolina
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Cleveland County, North Carolina

Cleveland County, North Carolina has 14 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1971–1993. MSHA's register carries 21 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Cleveland 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)
14
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
21
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits5 quadrangle maps, published 1971–1993 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
    4 28.6%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    9 64.3%
  3. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    1 7.1%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned21 on register
  1. BUFFALO VALLEY MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert E Lee · MSHA ID 3102099
    Abandoned
  2. CLEVELAND COUNTY DREDGE & PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chapman Grading & Concrete Company Inc · MSHA ID 3101802
    Abandoned
  3. CLEVELAND COUNTY MINES
    Surface metal/non-metal · Asphalt Paving Of Shelby Inc · MSHA ID 3101900
    Abandoned
  4. Cleveland County Pits
    Surface metal/non-metal · N C Dept Of Transportation-Div Of Highways · MSHA ID 3101791
    Abandoned
  5. DOUBLE SHOALS DREDGE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Spangler Sand · MSHA ID 3101339
    Abandoned
  6. ELLIS FERRY DREDGE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Concrete Supply Company · MSHA ID 3100444
    Abandoned
  7. First Broad River Dredge
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mc Swain Septic Tank Company · MSHA ID 3101512
    Abandoned
  8. Foote Mineral Reclaim
    Facility metal/non-metal · Berry Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 3101576
    Abandoned
  9. Job #P-77-100
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cumberland Gravel & Sand Company · MSHA ID 3101622
    Abandoned
  10. Kings Mountain Brick Inc Kings Mtn
    Facility metal/non-metal · Kings Mountain Brick Inc · MSHA ID 3100730
    Abandoned
  11. Kings Mountain Flotation Mill
    Facility metal/non-metal · Foote Mineral Company · MSHA ID 3101122
    Abandoned
  12. Kings Mountain Mica
    Surface metal/non-metal · J M Huber Corp · MSHA ID 3102016
    Abandoned
  13. Kings Mountain Mine & Mineral Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cyprus Foote Mineral Company · MSHA ID 3100119
    Abandoned
  14. Kings Mountain Plant 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bennett Brick & Tile Company · MSHA ID 3100728
    Abandoned
  15. Lavender Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Delta Aggregates Inc · MSHA ID 3101854
    Abandoned
  16. Moss Flotation Mill
    Facility metal/non-metal · Kings Mountain Silica Inc · MSHA ID 3100272
    Abandoned
  17. MOSS LAKE MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Delta Aggregates Inc · MSHA ID 3102126
    Abandoned
  18. Sand Division-Cliffside Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chapman Grading & Concrete Company Inc · MSHA ID 3102065
    Abandoned
  19. Sandco Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sandco · MSHA ID 3102112
    Abandoned
  20. Shelby Pit / Grover Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Blythe Construction Inc. · MSHA ID 3102322
    Abandoned
  21. Twin Mountain Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rednour Mining Corp · MSHA ID 3102082
    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
Quarry 6
Open Pit Mine 2
Sand Pit 2
Open Pit Mine 2
Quarry 1
Tailings - Pond 1
Other counties in North CarolinaAll 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.