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Abandoned mines › Oregon
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Wasco County, Oregon

Wasco County, Oregon has 185 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1956–1996, including 1 prospect pits; 10 of the features carry a name on the map. MSHA's register carries 25 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Wasco 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)
185
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
25
10 features carry a name1 prospect pits45 quadrangle maps, published 1956–1996 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Prospect pits and trenches
    shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
    1 0.5%
  2. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    7 3.8%
  3. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    177 95.7%
Named features on the maps10 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Alkali Quarry Quarry
Forest Creek Quarry Quarry
Jordan Quarry Quarry area
Lones Point Quarry Quarry
Owl Quarry Quarry
Rainbow Quarry Quarry
Rainbow Quarry Quarry
Rimtie Quarry Quarry
Skyline Quarry Quarry
Warm Springs Quarry Quarry

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.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned25 on register
  1. 7 Mile Hill Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Q-Bit Rock Company · MSHA ID 3501125
    Abandoned
  2. Alkali Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Jarl Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 3500904
    Abandoned
  3. Crawford Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Wasco County Road Department · MSHA ID 3502877
    Abandoned
  4. District 9 West
    Surface metal/non-metal · Oregon Department of Transportation · MSHA ID 3503790
    Abandoned
  5. Fulton Canyon Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Morse Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 3500906
    Abandoned
  6. Green Lake Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · J Arlie Bryant Inc · MSHA ID 3501506
    Abandoned
  7. Hardin Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Wasco County Road Department · MSHA ID 3500900
    Abandoned
  8. Highway 97-Milepost 35 Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern Oregon Aggregate Inc · MSHA ID 3502991
    Abandoned
  9. J. M. ELLETT PORTABLE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Jim Ellett Construction · MSHA ID 3503390
    Abandoned
  10. Jakey Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · J Arlie Bryant Inc · MSHA ID 3503088
    Abandoned
  11. Justesen Pit Highway 97 Milepost 53
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern Oregon Aggregate Inc · MSHA ID 3503005
    Abandoned
  12. Keo Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cody Logging & Construction Company · MSHA ID 3502542
    Abandoned
  13. Mosier Pit And Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bi State Redi Mix · MSHA ID 3502546
    Abandoned
  14. Pit And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dalles Concrete Products Company · MSHA ID 3500479
    Abandoned
  15. Portable 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dodge Logging Inc. · MSHA ID 3503813
    Abandoned
  16. Portable Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rockline Inc · MSHA ID 3503057
    Abandoned
  17. PORTABLE CRUSHER
    Surface metal/non-metal · Wasco County Road Department · MSHA ID 3502878
    Abandoned
  18. Portable Plant #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Grant I Sharp Construction · MSHA ID 3501563
    Abandoned
  19. Shady Brook Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rockline Inc · MSHA ID 3502887
    Abandoned
  20. Skyline Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cody Logging & Construction Company · MSHA ID 3501473
    Abandoned
  21. State Pit #33-37-4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cody Logging & Construction Company · MSHA ID 3502990
    Abandoned
  22. Stockton Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · J Arlie Bryant Inc · MSHA ID 3502873
    Abandoned
  23. Taylor Lake
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crestline Const Co LLC dba TD Columbia · MSHA ID 3503506
    Abandoned
  24. Tygh Valley Dredge And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tygh Valley Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 3500803
    Abandoned
  25. Tygh Valley Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Cody Logging & Construction Company · MSHA ID 3502888
    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
Borrow Pit 56
Gravel Pit 49
Quarry 35
Gravel Pit 13
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 8
Sand Pit 6
Quarry 4
Cinder Pit 3
Borrow Pit 3
Disturbed Surface 3
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 2
Open Pit Mine 2
Prospect Pit 1
Other counties in OregonAll 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.