Abandoned Mines

Urban exploration in Missouri
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Pinballwiz
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Abandoned Mines

Post by Pinballwiz »

Has anyone explored one of the hundreds of abandoned mines in Missouri?

Here is a map of some of the known mines in Missouri. There are a many located on public land that are a mystery.


http://dnr.mo.gov/geology/geosrv/geores/mine-maps/

There's no way I would go into one though! Read this booklet by the BLM. :

http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/w ... ochure.pdf

Gave me the creeps man. Hair standing on the back of my beck at the thought of falling 100 feet to my death.

So..has anyone explored any mines? Pics? Location?
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RedRook
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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Yeah, every lead mine I've been to has been nothing more than a slight indentation in the earth and possibly a pile near the indentation. Most of them were shaft mines at some time that were just one long vertical hole, except in older areas where you have some pit mines. In either case, the holes have long ago been filled in enough you won't get hurt. Maybe I've looked in the wrong places, the places I've been are near Springfield, so the population is decent enough the authorities are likely worried about injury.

Now there are some active mines and still explorable surface abandoned surface quarries on private land, and I'm speaking without claiming to have been in them. Maybe I have or maybe I haven't. Active mines though don't always watch the area they are working in too closely. It's kind of like a construction site with less visibility to populated areas than normal.
Last edited by RedRook on Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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One should be very careful in quarries though. Chemical in some of those quarries are pretty dangerous.
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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Wasn't there a couple deaths in active quarries recently. I think one was a swimmer that just never came up, and the other was shot (not related to the quarry itself.)
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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The St. Louis deaths.
http://www.komu.com/news/two-men-drown- ... ts/page/2/

I'm having trouble finding the shooting, but if I remember right, it was in that quarry by Sequiota Park in Springfield, MO.
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Re: Abandoned Mines

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You'd think that someone would be smart enough to fill in some of those gigantic holes in the ground.
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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Though there is little left of the old mines all over the county, Schoolcraft is an interestiing read. I posted about it a long time ago. He gives some accounts of what many of these mines were like back when they were operational just after the Louisiana Purchase. A lot of the later mines around the turn from the 1800's and 1900's were already starting to flounder. Now it seems that the main thing left in our region are the limestone and gravel quarries. At one time though, Southern Missouri was the Saudi Arabia of lead.

http://www.undergroundozarks.com/forum/ ... php?t=8640
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Re: RE: Abandoned Mines

Post by Nicotti »

RedRook wrote:I'm having trouble finding the shooting, but if I remember right, it was in that quarry by Sequiota Park in Springfield, MO.
That quarry is active.
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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I know its active, the shooting wasn't of anyone opearating the quarry. I asked the person that told me about it if I was remembering right. It wasn't actually in the quarry, which might explain why I'm having trouble finding an article. Apparently they found them shot dead just south of the quarry, reported by someone living on the south side of the quarry, and they don't remember if it was the one by Galloway, or apparently there is another quarry from the same company up closer to downtown that it might have been at. There's been a lot of shootings lately.
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RE: Abandoned Mines

Post by Pinballwiz »

Thanks for all the posts guys. Yeah, Missouri was definitely booming in mining a long time ago. Many private citizens started digging around! lol. When it ran out of iron/lead they would most times just leave. Open pit and all.

There is still quite a bit of lead mining in the southeastern part of Missouri.

Another thing that is interesting to think about is all the sinkholes in Missouri. In my neck of the woods some dude walked right into an 80 foot sinkhole that appeared on his property and died. This was a few years ago.

http://fox2now.com/2013/09/17/hunter-fa ... ki-county/
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RedRook
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RE: Abandoned Mines

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It's harder to see at dusk than people think. I fell off a mountain in Hawaii with a friend of mine at dusk. The brush at the top of the mountain is really short, about knee height, and it gets gradually deeper as the ground gets lower until you have full trees as the terrain goes down hill fairly rapidly. The mountain side is steep and muddy, and it folds back on itself often, so its always difficult to see what the ground at your feet is doing, since the vegetation is thick enough you never actually see the mud unless you are on a trail on the ridge lines.

There's an elevation where it's really hard to tell where the ground is, because the vegetation levels out even though the ground doesn't. So we were at a cliff with this phenomenon at dusk, and we both walked directly onto a mud slide at the same time. It was about 50 meters down into a draw where we could stop ourselves. Neither of us were seriously hurt, but its one of several times that evolution failed to wipe me off the earth. If you are hunting for holes in the ground, it needs to be the middle of the day.
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Re: Abandoned Mines

Post by PANIC! on the Titanic »

Mines in MO are pretty lame and tame compared to the old underground shafts you think of being out west. Most of what you'll find around here are old pit and strip mines, or the occasional room and pillar quarry, and those can actually be pretty sweet. I have a thread on here from long ago about such a quarry in Elsberry.

There is an old iron pit near rolla I used to camp at, had a debris hut shelter there and everything. The mine itself was pretty cool, it was just a deep hole filled with bright green water (probably reduced iron) surrounded by mounds of pink and orange tailings piles.

Also nearby Rolla is Moselle #10, which is an open pit iron mine ca. 1872 - 1880 and is 185 ft deep. Cool imgur album here (not mine): http://imgur.com/a/FWkJQ

One place to really explore for mines is Madison county. They have a ton of underground mines, as well as a wide range of commodities (not just Iron, lead and crushed stone). There's like, copper, tin, silver, titanium, tungsten, cobalt and nickel. The ores for those by themselves would be neat to pick through and find cool rocks. This arouses the geologist in me. A defunct underground operation can be found here 37° 32.970'N 90° 16.639'W.
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RE: Abandoned Mines

Post by SubLunar »

I know of a badass room and pillar mine that's not well known outside of the small town its in. Unfortunately, it's 3 hours north of you.
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Re: Abandoned Mines

Post by BagHead727 »

I still believe there should be a 2-level copper mine sear Sullivan that I NEED to check out. I just don't want to do a several hour hike by myself
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Re: Abandoned Mines

Post by PANIC! on the Titanic »

There's an underground copper mine out in the middle of the woods here, is that it?
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