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

Abandoned mines in Kane County, Utah

Kane County, Utah has 97 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1954–2002, including 32 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts) and 12 prospect pits; 5 of the features carry a name on the map. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 36 problems in the county, 14 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 20 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Kane 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)
97
Mine openings
32
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
14
MSHA mines marked abandoned
20
5 features carry a name12 prospect pits38 quadrangle maps, published 1954–2002 36 OSMRE problems, 22 reclaimed 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
    42 31.6%
  2. Prospect pits and trenches
    shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
    12 9.0%
  3. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    4 3.0%
  4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    49 36.8%
  5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    11 8.3%
  6. Mills, tipples and facilities
    processing plants and hazardous structures
    3 2.3%
  7. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    12 9.0%
Named features on the maps5 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Hattie Green Mine Adit
King Mine Adit
Montezuma Mine Adit
Montezuma Mine Adit
Montezuma 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.

OSMRE abandoned mine land problems36 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Alton P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Alton P3 Equipment Facility Reclamation Completed
Alton P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Alton P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Bald Knoll P2 Portals In Reclamation
Bald Knoll P3 Equipment Facility In Reclamation
Bald Knoll P3 Gobs In Reclamation
Bald Knoll P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Big Smoky P1 Subsidence In Reclamation
Big Smoky P1 Underground Mine Fires In Reclamation
Bryce P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Burning Hills P1 Subsidence In Reclamation
Burning Hills P1 Underground Mine Fires In Reclamation
Cedar Canyon P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Cedar Canyon P1 Surface Burning Reclamation Completed
Cedar Canyon P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Cedar Canyon P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Cedar Canyon P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Glendale P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Glendale P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Glendale P3 Equipment Facility Reclamation Completed
Glendale P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Glendale P3 Pits Reclamation Completed
Glendale P3 Spoil Area Reclamation Completed
Orderville Canyon P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Orderville Canyon P3 Gobs Reclamation Completed
Paria P1 Portals Reclamation Pending
Paria P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Paria P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Paria P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Reichert P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments In Reclamation
Reichert P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Windsor Cove P3 Pits In Reclamation
Windsor Cove P3 Spoil Area In Reclamation
Zion Fire P1 Dangerous Highwalls In Reclamation
Zion Fire P1 Underground Mine Fires In Reclamation

Problem types carry OSMRE's priority prefix: P1 and P2 are threats to health, safety and property, P3 is environmental. A problem area is a cluster of problems reclaimed as one project; several rows can share one location.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned20 on register
  1. Alton Mine
    Surface coal · Bhp Minerals International Inc · MSHA ID 4201759
    Abandoned
  2. Bald Knoll Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · March Corp · MSHA ID 4202104
    Abandoned
  3. Blaze Crusher #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Blaze Construction Inc · MSHA ID 4202048
    Abandoned
  4. Bucksin Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Judd Construction Inc · MSHA ID 4200442
    Abandoned
  5. Burton #1 Mine
    Underground coal · Alton Coal Development LLC · MSHA ID 4202639
    Abandoned
  6. Excel 15 S/N 12EA0758
    Surface metal/non-metal · B4 Enterprises · MSHA ID 4202645
    Abandoned
  7. Extec 6000
    Surface metal/non-metal · Steeds Inc. · MSHA ID 4202339
    Abandoned
  8. GLEN CANYON PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Americo Rock & Sand · MSHA ID 4201603
    Abandoned
  9. Jackson Flat Wash Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Precision Aggregate Products LLC · MSHA ID 4202570
    Abandoned
  10. John Henry Mine
    Underground coal · 5m Coporation · MSHA ID 4201227
    Abandoned
  11. Kanab Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Judd Construction Inc · MSHA ID 4201739
    Abandoned
  12. Kane County Ecological Study Site
    Surface metal/non-metal · Managed Construction · MSHA ID 4202336
    Abandoned
  13. Millcreek Burnt Shale
    Surface metal/non-metal · Skutmpah Enterprises, LLC · MSHA ID 4202647
    Abandoned
  14. Mt Carmel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · J D M Sand & Rock · MSHA ID 4201738
    Abandoned
  15. Orderville Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Kaneco Ready Mix Company · MSHA ID 4201706
    Abandoned
  16. Paria
    Surface metal/non-metal · Western Rock Products · MSHA ID 4202459
    Abandoned
  17. Portable Crusher No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Summit Rock Products Company · MSHA ID 4201682
    Abandoned
  18. South Fork No 1 Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Standard Gold & Silver Inc · MSHA ID 4201256
    Abandoned
  19. Upper Wahweep Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Southern Utah Rock Products Company · MSHA ID 4201123
    Abandoned
  20. WR Portable Wash Plant # 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Western Rock Products · MSHA ID 4201122
    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 32
Adit 30
Gravel Pit 13
Prospect Pit 12
P1 Portals 5
P3 Gobs 5
P2 Portals 4
P3 Spoil Area 4
P3 Equipment Facility 3
P1 Underground Mine Fires 3
P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities 3
P1 Subsidence 2
Open Pit Mine 2
Mine Shaft 2
P3 Pits 2
Cinder Pit 2
Open Pit Mine 2
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 2
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
P1 Vertical Openings 1
Borrow Pit 1
P1 Surface Burning 1
P1 Dangerous Highwalls 1
Other counties in UtahAll 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.