Mining Incidents
Search Operators Mines Alerts Research Controllers Fatalgrams About
Countries
Peru Chile
English Español
Abandoned mines › Pennsylvania
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Chester County, Pennsylvania

Chester County, Pennsylvania has 52 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1953–1999; 2 of the features carry a name on the map. MSHA's register carries 15 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Chester 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)
52
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
15
2 features carry a name0 prospect pits16 quadrangle maps, published 1953–1999 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
    27 51.9%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    25 48.1%
Named features on the maps2 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Former Mine Open Pit Mine area
Former Mine Open Pit Mine area

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 Abandoned15 on register
  1. Atglen Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Atglen Quarries Inc · MSHA ID 3604681
    Abandoned
  2. Avon Grove Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · J Ernest & Philip T Minor · MSHA ID 3600171
    Abandoned
  3. Avondale Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Technivate, Inc. · MSHA ID 3609395
    Abandoned
  4. AVONDALE QUARRY
    Surface metal/non-metal · Avondale Quarry · MSHA ID 3608588
    Abandoned
  5. Bluestone Quarry And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Alfred J Fecondo · MSHA ID 3600080
    Abandoned
  6. Devault Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Allan Myers Materials · MSHA ID 3600060
    Abandoned
  7. Diamond Tex Incorporated
    Facility metal/non-metal · Diamond Tex Inc · MSHA ID 3607878
    Abandoned
  8. LT120-002
    Surface metal/non-metal · MELLOTT COMPANY LLC · MSHA ID 3610135
    Abandoned
  9. METSO LT 106 JAW SN#181706
    Surface metal/non-metal · Siri Contracting, LLC · MSHA ID 3610392
    Abandoned
  10. Metso LT120 Track Jaw Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Siri Contracting LLC · MSHA ID 3610407
    Abandoned
  11. Metso LT120 Track Jaw Crusher #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Siri Contracting LLC · MSHA ID 3610417
    Abandoned
  12. METSO LT300HP CONE SN#78787
    Surface metal/non-metal · Siri Contracting LLC · MSHA ID 3610393
    Abandoned
  13. Valley Stone Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · John Popple Trucking Company · MSHA ID 3608338
    Abandoned
  14. Warner Co-Cedar Hollow Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Warner Company · MSHA ID 3600265
    Abandoned
  15. WELSH MOUNTAIN BUILDING STONE, INC.
    Surface metal/non-metal · Welsh Mountain Building Stone Inc · MSHA ID 3600795
    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/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 15
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 9
Open Pit Mine 6
Disturbed Surface 6
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 5
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 4
Quarry 3
Quarry 2
Strip Mine 1
Gravel Pit 1
Other counties in PennsylvaniaAll 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.