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

Abandoned mines in Union County, South Dakota

Union County, South Dakota has 42 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1968–1994. MSHA's register carries 17 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Union 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)
42
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
17
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits8 quadrangle maps, published 1968–1994 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    42 100.0%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned17 on register
  1. 45'' Cone
    Surface metal/non-metal · Weatherton Contracting Company Inc · MSHA ID 3901433
    Abandoned
  2. Alfalfa Mill Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Christenson Construction · MSHA ID 3900757
    Abandoned
  3. Bailey Sand And Gravel Pit No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Siouxland Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 3900819
    Abandoned
  4. Bennett Sand & Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · James Niven-Owner · MSHA ID 3900816
    Abandoned
  5. BERGDALE PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Higman Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 3901439
    Abandoned
  6. CEDAR RAPIDS PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Weatherton Contracting Company Inc · MSHA ID 3901401
    Abandoned
  7. CEDAR RAPIDS SCREENING PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Weatherton Contracting Company Inc · MSHA ID 3901434
    Abandoned
  8. Grothe Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Val Hladky · MSHA ID 3900953
    Abandoned
  9. Higman No. 4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Higman Sand & Gravel, Inc. · MSHA ID 3901484
    Abandoned
  10. KOLBERG PLANT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Westin Septic Service · MSHA ID 3901454
    Abandoned
  11. SCREENER PIT #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Higman Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 3900993
    Abandoned
  12. Sebern Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Richard Sebern-Owner · MSHA ID 3900755
    Abandoned
  13. Sebern Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sebern Construction · MSHA ID 3901473
    Abandoned
  14. SMITH CRUSHING
    Surface metal/non-metal · Smith Crushing · MSHA ID 3901435
    Abandoned
  15. South Dakota Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Weelborg Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 3901032
    Abandoned
  16. Union County
    Surface metal/non-metal · Union County Highway Department · MSHA ID 3900140
    Abandoned
  17. VSI Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Weatherton Contracting Co Inc · MSHA ID 3901509
    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 28
Gravel Pit 11
Sand Pit 2
Sand Pit 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.