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Abandoned mines › Texas
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Denton County, Texas

Denton County, Texas has 245 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1959–1981. MSHA's register carries 26 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Denton 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)
245
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
26
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits16 quadrangle maps, published 1959–1981 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
    38 15.5%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    207 84.5%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned26 on register
  1. AIRPORT SAND & GRAVEL
    Surface metal/non-metal · Airport Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4104300
    Abandoned
  2. AUBREY PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Blt Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4103947
    Abandoned
  3. B & B SAND & GRAVEL INC NO 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · B & B Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4104123
    Abandoned
  4. B & E Sand & Gravel Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · B & E Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 4103005
    Abandoned
  5. B&B SAND & GRAVEL #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · B & B Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4104248
    Abandoned
  6. Bolivar Sand And Gravel Pit #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · U S Aggregate Inc · MSHA ID 4103155
    Abandoned
  7. Bolivar Sand And Gravel Pit No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · U S Aggregate Inc · MSHA ID 4102155
    Abandoned
  8. Bolivar Sand And Gravel Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Txi (A/K/A Texas Industries Inc) · MSHA ID 4102481
    Abandoned
  9. C & L SAND INC
    Surface metal/non-metal · C & L Sand Inc · MSHA ID 4104295
    Abandoned
  10. First Choice Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · First Choice Sand & Gravel LLC · MSHA ID 4104828
    Abandoned
  11. H S Jackson Sand & Gravel Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · H S Jackson Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4101094
    Abandoned
  12. MD Trucking And Excavation
    Surface metal/non-metal · MD Trucking And Excavation · MSHA ID 4105306
    Abandoned
  13. Mustang Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Texas Select Resources, LLC · MSHA ID 4105235
    Abandoned
  14. Pinnell Sand And Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Txi (A/K/A Texas Industries Inc) · MSHA ID 4102912
    Abandoned
  15. PROP OF BACHAED DAVIS
    Surface metal/non-metal · C & L Trucking Inc · MSHA ID 4104148
    Abandoned
  16. RC Denton
    Surface metal/non-metal · RC Sand Denton LLC · MSHA ID 4105671
    Abandoned
  17. ROANOKE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Crouch Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4104255
    Abandoned
  18. Southlake Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · U S Perlite Corp · MSHA ID 4103764
    Abandoned
  19. Swor Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Swor Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4101760
    Abandoned
  20. Swor Pit No 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Swor Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4102823
    Abandoned
  21. Swor Pit No 3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Swor Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 4102798
    Abandoned
  22. Talley Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Txi (A/K/A Texas Industries Inc) · MSHA ID 4103774
    Abandoned
  23. TJL JUSTIN PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · T J Lambrecht Construction Inc · MSHA ID 4104223
    Abandoned
  24. Vargo Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gainesville Sand & Gravel Company · MSHA ID 4103420
    Abandoned
  25. Vargo Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Sanger Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 4103631
    Abandoned
  26. WEIR SAND
    Surface metal/non-metal · Weir Brothers Inc · MSHA ID 4103945
    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 82
Gravel Pit 48
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 44
Quarry 19
Strip Mine 17
Quarry 10
Disturbed Surface 10
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 8
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 3
Clay Pit 3
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
Other counties in TexasAll 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.