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Abandoned mines › New Mexico
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Chaves County, New Mexico

Chaves County, New Mexico has 247 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1949–2004. MSHA's register carries 31 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Chaves 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)
247
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
31
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits60 quadrangle maps, published 1949–2004 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 3.2%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    239 96.8%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned31 on register
  1. 2010 883 Finley S/N:...71149
    Surface metal/non-metal · United Materials, LLP · MSHA ID 2902464
    Abandoned
  2. B C D Company
    Surface metal/non-metal · B C D Company · MSHA ID 2902264
    Abandoned
  3. Barton Pitts
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hurford Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2900862
    Abandoned
  4. Beavers Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Beavers Sand & Gravel Of Roswell Inc · MSHA ID 2902084
    Abandoned
  5. Border Hill East Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · James Hamilton Construction Company · MSHA ID 2901978
    Abandoned
  6. Bow-Van
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bow-Van Mining Company · MSHA ID 2902014
    Abandoned
  7. Brasher Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Loomis Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2901539
    Abandoned
  8. C & D Pits
    Surface metal/non-metal · C & D Mining Company · MSHA ID 2902015
    Abandoned
  9. Caliche Pit HA 0074
    Surface metal/non-metal · Jalapeno Corporation · MSHA ID 2902314
    Abandoned
  10. Chaves County Portable
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chaves County Road Department · MSHA ID 2900377
    Abandoned
  11. CRUHSER NO 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mountain States Constructors Inc · MSHA ID 2901231
    Abandoned
  12. CRUSHER #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mountain States Constructors Inc · MSHA ID 2901823
    Abandoned
  13. DEXTER PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Booher Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2901984
    Abandoned
  14. District #2 Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · New Mexico State Highway Department · MSHA ID 2901357
    Abandoned
  15. Felix Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · American Aggregate · MSHA ID 2901924
    Abandoned
  16. Flintstone
    Surface metal/non-metal · Flintstone Redi Mix · MSHA ID 2901965
    Abandoned
  17. Interstate Paving Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Interstate Paving · MSHA ID 2901951
    Abandoned
  18. King Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Booher Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2902035
    Abandoned
  19. Lost River
    Surface metal/non-metal · J & H SERVICES, INC · MSHA ID 2902498
    Abandoned
  20. MELENA PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Booher Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2902078
    Abandoned
  21. Mobile #Two
    Surface metal/non-metal · Armstrong Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 2902000
    Abandoned
  22. NG PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · NG TRUCKING INC · MSHA ID 2902530
    Abandoned
  23. Penasco River Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Colorado Lien Company · MSHA ID 2901910
    Abandoned
  24. Pollard Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · R E Monks Construction Company · MSHA ID 2902119
    Abandoned
  25. Ramirez and Sons
    Surface metal/non-metal · Ramirez And Sons, Inc. · MSHA ID 2902403
    Abandoned
  26. Rio Feliz Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · George Graham Gravel Products · MSHA ID 2901756
    Abandoned
  27. Roswell Mill
    Facility metal/non-metal · Gardner Enterprise · MSHA ID 2902105
    Abandoned
  28. Roswell Sand Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rose Gravel Company · MSHA ID 2901734
    Abandoned
  29. Skyline Enterprises
    Surface metal/non-metal · Skyline Enterprises · MSHA ID 2902008
    Abandoned
  30. Smith Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · George Graham Gravel · MSHA ID 2901867
    Abandoned
  31. Yarbrough
    Surface metal/non-metal · Constructors, Inc. · MSHA ID 2902402
    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 105
Gravel Pit 87
Sand Pit 18
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 12
Sand Pit 11
Disturbed Surface 6
Quarry 3
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 2
Caliche Pit 1
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
Clay Pit 1
Other counties in New MexicoAll 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.