Abandoned mines in Pocahontas County, West Virginia
Pocahontas County, West Virginia has 40 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1961–1995, including 1 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts). OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 27 problems in the county, 26 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 6 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.
Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Pocahontas 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)
- 40
- Mine openings
- 1
- OSMRE problems unreclaimed
- 26
- MSHA mines marked abandoned
- 6
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1 1.5%Mine openingsshafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
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31 46.3%Mines and surface workingslabelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
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8 11.9%Quarries, gravel and borrow pitsconstruction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
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5 7.5%Dumps, tailings, spoil and gobwhat mining left above ground
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3 4.5%Mills, tipples and facilitiesprocessing plants and hazardous structures
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19 28.4%Other reclamation problemshighwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
| Problem area | Problem | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Black Mountain Mine | P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments | Reclamation Pending |
| Black Mountain Mine | P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities | Reclamation Pending |
| Black Mountain Mine | P2 Polluted Water: Agricultural & Industrial | Reclamation Pending |
| Black Mountain Mine | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Briery Knob Highwall | P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments | Reclamation Pending |
| Briery Knob Highwall | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Briery Knob Highwall | P3 Water Problems | Reclamation Pending |
| Buck Knob Highwall | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Buck Knob Highwall | P3 Spoil Area | Reclamation Pending |
| Gauley Divide Highwalls | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Gauley Divide Highwalls | P3 Water Problems | Reclamation Pending |
| Gauley Mt. Highwall | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Gauley Mt. Trail Highwall | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Gauley Mt. Trail Highwall | P3 Water Problems | Reclamation Pending |
| Middle Fork Highwall | P2 Dangerous Highwalls | Reclamation Pending |
| Middle Mt. Highwalls | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Sharp Knob Highwall | P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities | Reclamation Pending |
| Sharp Knob Highwall | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Sharp Knob Highwall | P3 Spoil Area | Reclamation Pending |
| Sharp Knob Highwall | P3 Water Problems | Reclamation Pending |
| Sharps Knob (USFS) Structure | P1 Hazardous Equip & Facilities | Reclamation Completed |
| South Fork Mountain | P2 Dangerous Highwalls | Reclamation Pending |
| Tea Creek Highwall | P2 Dangerous Highwalls | Reclamation Pending |
| Turkey Mountain Highwall | P2 Dangerous Highwalls | Reclamation Pending |
| Upper Middle Mt. Highwall | P3 High Wall | Reclamation Pending |
| Upper Middle Mt. Highwall | P3 Spoil Area | Reclamation Pending |
| Upper Middle Mt. Highwall | P3 Water Problems | Reclamation Pending |
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.
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Bowman Limestone Company IncorporatedAbandoned 1995-10-26Surface metal/non-metal · Bowman Limestone Company Inc · MSHA ID 4607595
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LYNWOOD QUARRYAbandoned 2000-05-30Surface metal/non-metal · Waco Stone · MSHA ID 4604215
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No 1 MineAbandoned 1971-12-21Underground coal · Coal Contracting Company · MSHA ID 4600978
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No 1 UgAbandoned 1971-09-30Underground coal · Craigsville Coal Company · MSHA ID 4600980
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No 2 UgAbandoned 1971-12-21Underground coal · W & G Coal Company · MSHA ID 4600979
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Pocahontas Contruction CompanyAbandoned 1988-06-17Surface metal/non-metal · Pocahontas Construction Company · MSHA ID 4600054
Status and date are as reported to MSHA by the operator. Each mine's own page carries its accident, citation and inspection record.
| Feature type | Features |
|---|---|
| Strip Mine | 30 |
| P3 High Wall | 9 |
| P3 Water Problems | 5 |
| P2 Dangerous Highwalls | 4 |
| Quarry | 4 |
| Gravel Pit | 4 |
| P3 Spoil Area | 3 |
| P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities | 2 |
| P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments | 2 |
| P2 Polluted Water: Agricultural & Industrial | 1 |
| Adit | 1 |
| Open Pit Mine | 1 |
| P1 Hazardous Equip & Facilities | 1 |
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.