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Abandoned mines › Nebraska
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Knox County, Nebraska

Knox County, Nebraska has 67 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1954–1978. MSHA's register carries 22 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Knox 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)
67
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
22
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits11 quadrangle maps, published 1954–1978 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    67 100.0%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned22 on register
  1. Becker Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Vakoc Construction Company · MSHA ID 2501029
    Abandoned
  2. Beckman Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Vakoc Construction · MSHA ID 2501082
    Abandoned
  3. CENTER PIT & PLANT NO. 3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Backus Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2501075
    Abandoned
  4. Crosley Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crosley Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2500763
    Abandoned
  5. Crosley Shop
    Surface metal/non-metal · Niobrara Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500764
    Abandoned
  6. Dredge #2 Knox
    Surface metal/non-metal · Willow Creek Sand and Gravel · MSHA ID 2501296
    Abandoned
  7. Jans Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Don Mc Elhose Construction · MSHA ID 2501149
    Abandoned
  8. Jessen Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crosley Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2500985
    Abandoned
  9. Jessen Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crosley Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2501023
    Abandoned
  10. Knox County Nickels Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Willow Creek Sand and Gravel · MSHA ID 2501302
    Abandoned
  11. Kolberg Screener
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sinclair Sand and Gravel · MSHA ID 2501210
    Abandoned
  12. LYLE POSPISIL
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lyle Pospisil · MSHA ID 2500996
    Abandoned
  13. Mc Elhose Construction Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mc Elhose Trucking & Construction · MSHA ID 2500973
    Abandoned
  14. Moeller Pit/Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Coutts & Sons Company · MSHA ID 2500210
    Abandoned
  15. NICKELS GRAVEL PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Nickels Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500901
    Abandoned
  16. Plant #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Don McElhoseTrucking & Construction · MSHA ID 2501294
    Abandoned
  17. Portable Plant #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Niobrara Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500762
    Abandoned
  18. Sage Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · George Sage · MSHA ID 2500951
    Abandoned
  19. Selders Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Coutts & Sons Company · MSHA ID 2500211
    Abandoned
  20. Suchy Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · K & J Construction · MSHA ID 2501127
    Abandoned
  21. Vakoc Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Vakoc Construction Company · MSHA ID 2500952
    Abandoned
  22. Verdigre Sand & Gravel Pit And Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Verdigre Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500331
    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 60
Gravel Pit 4
Clay Pit 2
Sand Pit 1
Other counties in NebraskaAll 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.