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Abandoned mines › South Dakota
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Lawrence County, South Dakota

Lawrence County, South Dakota has 295 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1915–1984, including 68 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts) and 156 prospect pits; 12 of the features carry a name on the map. MSHA's register carries 41 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Lawrence 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)
295
Mine openings
68
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
41
12 features carry a name156 prospect pits19 quadrangle maps, published 1915–1984 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mine openings
    shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
    68 23.1%
  2. Prospect pits and trenches
    shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
    156 52.9%
  3. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    29 9.8%
  4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    38 12.9%
  5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    4 1.4%
Named features on the maps12 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Bald Mountain Mine Mine
Fillmore Mine Open Pit Mine area
Flatiron Mine Mine
Giant Mine Adit
Gilt Edge Maid Mine Mine
Golden Crest Mine Mine
Golden Reward Mine Mine
Ice Cave Adit
Lucky Strike Mine Open Pit Mine
Montana Mine Mine Shaft
Rusty No 9 Mine Mine Shaft
Tinton Mine Adit

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 Abandoned41 on register
  1. Airport Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hills Materials Company · MSHA ID 3901199
    Abandoned
  2. Bench Mark Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hills Materials Company · MSHA ID 3901301
    Abandoned
  3. Black Hills Crushing
    Surface metal/non-metal · Black Hills Crushing · MSHA ID 3901587
    Abandoned
  4. Boscobel Double Standard
    Underground metal/non-metal · Anaconda Minerals Company · MSHA ID 3901279
    Abandoned
  5. Centennial Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Centennial Quarry · MSHA ID 3901209
    Abandoned
  6. Centennial Quarry #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tom Lien Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3901352
    Abandoned
  7. Clayton Pit #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hills Materials Company · MSHA ID 3901297
    Abandoned
  8. Clover Leaf Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Clover Leaf · MSHA ID 3901657
    Abandoned
  9. Custer Peak Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lawrence County Highway Department · MSHA ID 3900873
    Abandoned
  10. Delzer Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Delzer Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 3901175
    Abandoned
  11. Fisher Sand And Gravel Company
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hansen Pit No 1 · MSHA ID 3900662
    Abandoned
  12. Gilt Edge Mine
    Underground metal/non-metal · Cyprus Exploration Company · MSHA ID 3900902
    Abandoned
  13. GILT EDGE MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Brohm Mining Corp · MSHA ID 3901361
    Abandoned
  14. Golden Reward Mine
    Underground metal/non-metal · Anaconda Minerals Company · MSHA ID 3901281
    Abandoned
  15. GOLDEN REWARD MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Golden Reward Mining Company Lp · MSHA ID 3901362
    Abandoned
  16. H & S Sand and Gravel Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · H & S Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3901511
    Abandoned
  17. Homestake Mine Lead
    Surface metal/non-metal · Homestake Mining Company of California · MSHA ID 3900055
    Abandoned
  18. Iron Creek Placer
    Surface metal/non-metal · McCubbin Mining LLC · MSHA ID 3901592
    Abandoned
  19. Iron Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lawrence County Highway Department · MSHA ID 3901019
    Abandoned
  20. K L M Exco
    Surface metal/non-metal · K L M Exco · MSHA ID 3901499
    Abandoned
  21. Meink Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lundin Construction Company Inc · MSHA ID 3900918
    Abandoned
  22. Nemo Iron Ore
    Surface metal/non-metal · Pete Lien & Sons Inc · MSHA ID 3900774
    Abandoned
  23. OPEN CUT - LEAD
    Surface metal/non-metal · Homestake Mining Company Of California · MSHA ID 3901284
    Abandoned
  24. Portable Plant #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Pete Lien and Sons, Inc. · MSHA ID 0503223
    Abandoned
  25. Portable Screen Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rogers Construction, Inc. · MSHA ID 3901638
    Abandoned
  26. PQ 2508
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hills Materials Company · MSHA ID 3901408
    Abandoned
  27. Ragged Top Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Homestake Mining Company Of California · MSHA ID 3901308
    Abandoned
  28. Redex Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dakota Placers Inc · MSHA ID 3901389
    Abandoned
  29. RICHMOND HILL MINE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lac Minerals (Usa) Inc · MSHA ID 3901363
    Abandoned
  30. Ross J Beatty Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Tinton Enterprises, LTD · MSHA ID 3901410
    Abandoned
  31. Scherr Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Zacharias Construction Inc · MSHA ID 3901390
    Abandoned
  32. Schultz Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · F R Schultz Construction Company · MSHA ID 3901149
    Abandoned
  33. Spargur Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Summit Inc · MSHA ID 3901225
    Abandoned
  34. Strawberry Hill Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Strawberry Hill Mining Company Inc · MSHA ID 3900381
    Abandoned
  35. Sundstrom Quarry And Mill
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sundstrom Inc · MSHA ID 3900018
    Abandoned
  36. Thompson Pit No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Whitewood Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 3900663
    Abandoned
  37. Tinton Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · American Aurum Corp · MSHA ID 3901292
    Abandoned
  38. UNIT #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Spearfish Excavating Inc · MSHA ID 3901407
    Abandoned
  39. Valley Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Valley Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 3901222
    Abandoned
  40. Whitewood Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Summit Materials Inc · MSHA ID 3901300
    Abandoned
  41. Whitewood Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hills Materials Company · MSHA ID 3901295
    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
Prospect Pit 156
Adit 38
Mine Shaft 30
Gravel Pit 18
Gravel Pit 12
Open Pit Mine 7
Disturbed Surface - Pit 6
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 6
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 6
Mine 5
Open Pit Mine 4
Mine Dump 3
Mine Dump 1
Placer Mine 1
Quarry 1
Quarry 1
Other counties in South DakotaAll 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.