Abandoned mines in Douglas County, Nebraska
Douglas County, Nebraska has 29 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1968–1994. MSHA's register carries 19 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.
Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Douglas 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)
- 29
- Mine openings
- 0
- OSMRE problems unreclaimed
- 0
- MSHA mines marked abandoned
- 19
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7 24.1%Mines and surface workingslabelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
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22 75.9%Quarries, gravel and borrow pitsconstruction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
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All Spec Sand & Gravel Company IncorporaAbandoned 1993-04-12Surface metal/non-metal · All Spec Sand & Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 2501120
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Buss Pit And PlantAbandoned 1979-01-11Surface metal/non-metal · Buss Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500784
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Cargill Salt TerminalAbandoned 1982-05-21Facility metal/non-metal · Cargill Inc · MSHA ID 2500565
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Ehlers Sand Pit #7Abandoned 2008-05-22Surface metal/non-metal · Mallard Sand & Gravel Co. · MSHA ID 2501235
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Hartford Green Pit No 9Abandoned 1984-07-17Surface metal/non-metal · Hartford Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500913
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Hazard HarborAbandoned 1980-10-03Surface metal/non-metal · Anderson Excavating & Wrecking Company · MSHA ID 2500877
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Iske Dirt Sand & GravelAbandoned 2004-09-24Surface metal/non-metal · Iske Dirt Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2501216
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Mc Cann South Pit #10Abandoned 1984-07-17Surface metal/non-metal · Hartford Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500286
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Omaha Brick Clay PitAbandoned 1994-09-08Surface metal/non-metal · Omaha Brick Works · MSHA ID 2500051
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PIT #11, VALLEYAbandoned 2008-05-12Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500282
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Pit #50Abandoned 2017-11-27Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501146
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Pit #7 ValleyAbandoned 2019-01-31Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501238
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Plant #10 WaterlooAbandoned 1991-03-14Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500556
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Plant #14 WaterlooAbandoned 1990-04-11Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500818
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Portable #23 ScreeningAbandoned 2014-05-28Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501249
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Portable #26 BlendingAbandoned 2016-04-11Surface metal/non-metal · Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501275
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Rail Pit No 2Abandoned 1985-04-30Surface metal/non-metal · Hartford Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500248
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ROGERT SAND PIT #4Abandoned 2007-09-17Surface metal/non-metal · Mallard Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501170
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Waterloo SandAbandoned 2025-07-23Surface metal/non-metal · Martin Marietta Materials Inc · MSHA ID 2501314
Status and date are as reported to MSHA by the operator. Each mine's own page carries its accident, citation and inspection record.
| Feature type | Features |
|---|---|
| Sand Pit | 13 |
| Sand Pit | 7 |
| Disturbed Surface | 3 |
| Disturbed Surface - Pit | 3 |
| Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated | 1 |
| Open Pit Mine or Quarry | 1 |
| Gravel Pit | 1 |
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.