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Abandoned mines › North Dakota
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Mountrail County, North Dakota

Mountrail County, North Dakota has 183 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1965–1981; 1 of the features carry a name on the map. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 32 problems in the county, 21 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 27 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Mountrail 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)
183
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
21
MSHA mines marked abandoned
27
1 features carry a name0 prospect pits40 quadrangle maps, published 1965–1981 32 OSMRE problems, 11 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
    1 0.5%
  2. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    3 1.4%
  3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    179 83.3%
  4. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    8 3.7%
  5. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    24 11.2%
Named features on the maps1 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Alkali Salt Pit Salt Evaporator area

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 problems32 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Harold Olmstead P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Harold Olmstead P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Harold Olmstead P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Harold Olmstead P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Hauge, Floyd E P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Hauge, Floyd E P2 Dangerous Highwalls In Reclamation
Hauge, Floyd E P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Hauge, Floyd E P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Hauge, Floyd E P2 Vertical Openings Reclamation Pending
Hauge, Floyd E P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
John Mc Namara P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
John Mc Namara P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
John Mc Namara P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Leron W. Ehlert P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Leron W. Ehlert P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Leron W. Ehlert P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
New Town Ne P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
New Town Ne P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
New Town Ne P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
New Town Nw P3 Pits In Reclamation
New Town Nw P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Parshall P1 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Parshall P2 Subsidence In Reclamation
Parshall P3 Gobs Reclamation Pending
Robert L. Turner P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Pending
Robert L. Turner P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Robert L. Turner P2 Subsidence Reclamation Pending
Robert L. Turner P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Rudd Richard P2 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
Shell Lake P2 Subsidence In Reclamation
Wade W. Williamson P1 Subsidence Reclamation Completed
White Earth P2 Subsidence In Reclamation

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 Abandoned27 on register
  1. 756
    Surface metal/non-metal · Eagle Rock Timber, Inc · MSHA ID 3201044
    Abandoned
  2. Anderson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Schriock Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3200343
    Abandoned
  3. Arnstad Pit & Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cactus Concrete Products Inc · MSHA ID 3200206
    Abandoned
  4. Crusher #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · H & K Construction · MSHA ID 3200749
    Abandoned
  5. Crusher #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · H & K Construction · MSHA ID 3200978
    Abandoned
  6. Crusher #3
    Surface metal/non-metal · H & K Construction · MSHA ID 3201000
    Abandoned
  7. ESUAUOLD PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Albert Mayer Construction · MSHA ID 3200753
    Abandoned
  8. FENSTERMACKER
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert Fenstermacker Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3200589
    Abandoned
  9. Fisher Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · L & M Enterprises Inc · MSHA ID 3200847
    Abandoned
  10. JCI Cone LE-18
    Surface metal/non-metal · Monson Corporation · MSHA ID 3200955
    Abandoned
  11. Jensen
    Surface metal/non-metal · Fritel Construction · MSHA ID 3201069
    Abandoned
  12. Johnson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · J M Lynn Dirtwork · MSHA ID 3200965
    Abandoned
  13. Loock Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Schriock Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3200331
    Abandoned
  14. Mountrail County Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sundhagen Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3200556
    Abandoned
  15. Pegson Jaw Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Excel Industries, Inc. · MSHA ID 3200974
    Abandoned
  16. Plant #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ottesen Sand & Gravel, Inc · MSHA ID 3201053
    Abandoned
  17. Plant# 3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ottesen Sand & Gravel, Inc · MSHA ID 3201054
    Abandoned
  18. Portable #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Schriock Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3200350
    Abandoned
  19. Powerscrener #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Aggregate Solutions · MSHA ID 3200915
    Abandoned
  20. Primary Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Edwards Gravel and Trucking · MSHA ID 3200831
    Abandoned
  21. Rambel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Schriock Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3200341
    Abandoned
  22. Rudolph Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Schriock Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3200342
    Abandoned
  23. Secondary Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Edwards Gravel and Trucking · MSHA ID 3200946
    Abandoned
  24. Shell Creek Mine
    Surface coal · Rodman G Price Ltd · MSHA ID 3200676
    Abandoned
  25. Tesab Rock Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Excel Industries, Inc. · MSHA ID 3200928
    Abandoned
  26. Triple Aggregate 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Triple Aggregate LLC · MSHA ID 3200962
    Abandoned
  27. White Star #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · White Star Sand & Gravel LLC · MSHA ID 3200911
    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 171
P2 Subsidence 13
P2 Dangerous Highwalls 7
Gravel Pit 5
P3 Spoil Area 5
P3 Pits 2
P1 Subsidence 2
Strip Mine 2
P2 Vertical Openings 1
P3 Gobs 1
Salt Evaporator 1
Scoria Pit 1
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
Quarry 1
Open Pit Mine 1
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 1
Other counties in North DakotaAll 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.