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Abandoned mines › Virginia
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Accomack County, Virginia

Accomack County, Virginia has 47 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1957–1992. MSHA's register carries 29 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Accomack 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)
47
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
29
0 features carry a name0 prospect pits6 quadrangle maps, published 1957–1992 1 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    9 19.1%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    38 80.9%
MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned29 on register
  1. A W Custis Borrow Pit #1
    Surface metal/non-metal · A W Custis · MSHA ID 4407345
    Abandoned
  2. A Wilson Custis Custis Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · A Wilson Custis · MSHA ID 4402908
    Abandoned
  3. Best Ever Lawn Care
    Surface metal/non-metal · Best Ever Lawn Care · MSHA ID 4407421
    Abandoned
  4. Billy K Beebe
    Surface metal/non-metal · Billy K Beebe · MSHA ID 4407358
    Abandoned
  5. Hill Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hill Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 4407348
    Abandoned
  6. Lance J Eller Nassawadox Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lance J Eller Inc · MSHA ID 4402668
    Abandoned
  7. LAZCON, LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · LAZCON, LLC · MSHA ID 4407361
    Abandoned
  8. Maddox Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Allen Clark Construction Co., Inc. · MSHA ID 4407363
    Abandoned
  9. Mears Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mears Bros Sand Co · MSHA ID 4402915
    Abandoned
  10. Mine No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · D D Doerflein Pit · MSHA ID 4403554
    Abandoned
  11. Mine No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Johnson Brothers · MSHA ID 4404266
    Abandoned
  12. Mine No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Taylor & Fletcher Sand Pit · MSHA ID 4404786
    Abandoned
  13. Mine No 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · John L Gillespie · MSHA ID 4404194
    Abandoned
  14. Mine No 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Johnson Brothers · MSHA ID 4404724
    Abandoned
  15. Mine No 2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gerald M Moore · MSHA ID 4404726
    Abandoned
  16. Mine No 35
    Underground coal · Dominion Coal Corporation · MSHA ID 4406793
    Abandoned and Sealed
  17. Mine No 4
    Surface metal/non-metal · A Wilson Custis · MSHA ID 4403984
    Abandoned
  18. Mine No 4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chesapeake Corp Of Virginia · MSHA ID 4403985
    Abandoned
  19. Mine No 5
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chesapeake Corp Of Virginia · MSHA ID 4403986
    Abandoned
  20. Mine No 5
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lance J Eller Inc · MSHA ID 4403988
    Abandoned
  21. Mine No 6
    Surface metal/non-metal · Chesapeake Corp Of Virginia · MSHA ID 4403987
    Abandoned
  22. Mine No 6
    Surface metal/non-metal · Lance J Eller Inc · MSHA ID 4403989
    Abandoned
  23. Nelsonia Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hillside Farm · MSHA ID 4403863
    Abandoned
  24. Pit No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Johnson Brothers · MSHA ID 4402466
    Abandoned
  25. Pit No 1
    Surface metal/non-metal · Hartman Sand Company · MSHA ID 4402954
    Abandoned
  26. Pit No 4
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gerald M Moore · MSHA ID 4404267
    Abandoned
  27. SAND PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · T & W Block Inc · MSHA ID 4406923
    Abandoned
  28. Wattsville Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Fox Brothers · MSHA ID 4403769
    Abandoned
  29. William F Mears Sand and Gravel INC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Mears Sand and Gravel LLC · MSHA ID 4407344
    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
Sand Pit 20
Sand Pit 16
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 7
Gravel Pit 1
Strip Mine 1
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
Disturbed Surface 1
Other counties in VirginiaAll 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.