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Abandoned mines › Nebraska
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska

Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska has 54 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1960–1990. MSHA's register carries 29 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Scotts Bluff 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)
54
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
29
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits11 quadrangle maps, published 1960–1990 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
    8 14.8%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    45 83.3%
  3. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    1 1.9%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned29 on register
  1. #401
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500924
    Abandoned
  2. #405
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501182
    Abandoned
  3. 19th Hole Pit & Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500903
    Abandoned
  4. Bolzer Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · B & M Mitchell Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500905
    Abandoned
  5. Dredge #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Quick Sand & Gravel Co · MSHA ID 2501194
    Abandoned
  6. Everett
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500889
    Abandoned
  7. Gritzfeld Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Quality Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500315
    Abandoned
  8. Hales Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Wolfe Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500769
    Abandoned
  9. Hiner Pit & Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500871
    Abandoned
  10. Kolberg 271
    Surface metal/non-metal · Beltline Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2500947
    Abandoned
  11. Landfill Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · City Of Scottsbluff · MSHA ID 2500740
    Abandoned
  12. Lyman
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501073
    Abandoned
  13. McGrew
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2501192
    Abandoned
  14. Minitare Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Quality Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500768
    Abandoned
  15. Mitchell Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gayman Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2501002
    Abandoned
  16. Mitchell Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2501113
    Abandoned
  17. Morrison Pit And Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Quality Sand & Gravel Company Inc · MSHA ID 2500830
    Abandoned
  18. Palser PIT #3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Beltline Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2501204
    Abandoned
  19. PANHANDLE CONCRETE PRODUCTS INC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Panhandle Concrete Products Inc · MSHA ID 2501160
    Abandoned
  20. Paul Reed Construction Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paul Reed Construction Inc · MSHA ID 2501255
    Abandoned
  21. Reed Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Beltline Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2501163
    Abandoned
  22. Riverview Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500690
    Abandoned
  23. Scottsbluff - Kembel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2501033
    Abandoned
  24. Scottsbluff Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · James E Simon Company · MSHA ID 2500890
    Abandoned
  25. Simon Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kembel Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2501013
    Abandoned
  26. TDS Screen Plant #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · TDS Collection Service · MSHA ID 4801675
    Abandoned
  27. Twin City Ready Mix
    Surface metal/non-metal · Twin City Ready Mix · MSHA ID 2500974
    Abandoned
  28. Willis Young Cement & Gravel Company
    Surface metal/non-metal · Willis Young Cement & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2500340
    Abandoned
  29. WOLFE SAND & GRAVEL PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Wolfe Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2500645
    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 32
Gravel Pit 7
Disturbed Surface - Pit 7
Sand Pit 4
Tailings - Pond 1
Clay Pit 1
Quarry 1
Disturbed Surface 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.