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Abandoned mines › Texas
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Somervell County, Texas

Somervell County, Texas has 46 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1961–1979. 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 Somervell 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)
46
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
15
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits5 quadrangle maps, published 1961–1979 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
    13 28.3%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    33 71.7%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned15 on register
  1. Branham Sand & Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · BURNCO TEXAS LLC · MSHA ID 4105127
    Abandoned
  2. Cleburne Sand & Gravel Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Txi (A/K/A Texas Industries Inc) · MSHA ID 4102263
    Abandoned
  3. Contb Lease
    Surface metal/non-metal · Osborn Stone & Tree Service · MSHA ID 4102990
    Abandoned
  4. Glen Rose Sand and Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lattimore Materials Corp · MSHA ID 4105116
    Abandoned
  5. L S Ranches Inc
    Surface metal/non-metal · L S Ranches Inc · MSHA ID 4104299
    Abandoned
  6. LARRY P. SMITH
    Surface metal/non-metal · Larry P Smith · MSHA ID 4104100
    Abandoned
  7. LEMENS
    Surface metal/non-metal · Valley Aggregate · MSHA ID 4103890
    Abandoned
  8. NELSON'S DIRT PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Nelson'S Dirt Pit · MSHA ID 4104054
    Abandoned
  9. PALUXY VALLEY MATERIALS
    Surface metal/non-metal · Paluxy Valley Materials · MSHA ID 4104167
    Abandoned
  10. Quarry
    Surface metal/non-metal · Texas Royal Stone · MSHA ID 4105183
    Abandoned
  11. Rainbow
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rainbow Landscape Materials LLC · MSHA ID 4104728
    Abandoned
  12. Ratliff Sand Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Brazos Bend Materials, LLC · MSHA ID 4105574
    Abandoned
  13. SHACKELFORD
    Surface metal/non-metal · Valley Aggregate · MSHA ID 4103958
    Abandoned
  14. SHACKLEFORD PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · West Trucking · MSHA ID 4104195
    Abandoned
  15. Tree Top
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rangel Stone-Masonry · MSHA ID 4104973
    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 22
Disturbed Surface 13
Gravel Pit 8
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 2
Sand Pit 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.