Official
State records
Iowa DNR Iowa Coal Mines map
Web map of known historic coal mine sites with address search, mine name and site ID search, mine maps and mine information.
Open official site Iowa DNR Iowa Coal Mines mapThis page
What this page is
Every office on this page was opened and checked on Oct. 22, 2026.
The 14 underground mine openings in Iowa are spread across 99 counties, and the heaviest of them is Scott County with 4. An opening on a historical sheet is a shaft, an adit or a tunnel that was drawn where the surveyor found it, so it marks a way into workings that run on underground, away from the point.
Coal was mined in Iowa from the 1840s to 1994.
Everything here can be wrong. This is information, not a guarantee: the two federal files can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, the boundaries and the geocoder can be wrong, a point is a location and not a property line, and nothing on this page says that a mine is or is not under any particular property. Do not buy, sell, move, or make any decision about a home or about your safety on this alone. Ask the state mine map office named here for the maps, and have a qualified engineer look at the ground.
Start here
Official Iowa mine record sources
Every card goes to the office that holds the record. Use the category buttons to narrow the list.
Official
State records
Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation
The Mines and Minerals Bureau program for Iowa's 300 plus AML sites and 13,000 acres of abandoned coal mines, mostly in southeast Iowa.
Open official site Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation
Official
State records
Iowa DNR, About Iowa Coal Mining and Coal Mine Data
The page that says how the coal mine records came from the Office of State Mine Inspectors (1884 to 1973) to the Iowa Geological Survey and into the map.
Open official site Iowa DNR, About Iowa Coal Mining and Coal Mine Data
Official
Federal
OSMRE National Mine Map Repository
The federal archive of maps of closed and abandoned mines, searchable by state, county, company and mine name; the images are sent on request through the map request form.
Open official site OSMRE National Mine Map Repository
Official
Federal
OSMRE e-AMLIS
The federal inventory of abandoned mine land problems and the reclamation work funded against them, state by state and county by county.
Open official site OSMRE e-AMLIS
Official
Federal
USGS USMIN topographic mine features
The national file of adits, shafts, pits and quarries digitised from the historical topographic sheets, each with the sheet name and the survey year.
Open official site USGS USMIN topographic mine features
Official
Federal
USGS Mineral Resources Data System
The USGS record of mines, prospects and occurrences with the commodity, the development status and the position of each site.
Open official site USGS Mineral Resources Data SystemThe map
Iowa mine workings on one map
To look at one address, one ZIP code or one town instead of the whole state, open the mine map hub search and enter it there: it takes a street address, a ZIP code or your browser location and lists what sits within the radius you choose.
Who keeps what
Who keeps which mine records in Iowa?
| What you need | Office or archive | What it can tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Maps of the workings themselves | Iowa DNR Iowa Coal Mines map | The mine name, the seam, the year the map was certified and whether your area is inside a mapped working |
| An open hole, a shaft or a subsidence emergency | Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation | Report it to this office; call 911 first if anyone is in danger |
| The geology, the seams and the published mapping | Iowa DNR, About Iowa Coal Mining and Coal Mine Data | Which seams were worked in your county and what the state has digitised |
| A map of a closed mine the state does not hold | OSMRE National Mine Map Repository | The federal archive of more than 275,000 mine maps, searched by state, county, company and mine name |
| Whether a reclamation project is on record near you | OSMRE e-AMLIS | The federal inventory of abandoned mine land problems and the work funded on them |
County by county
Iowa counties with recorded mine workings
99 counties have a record in one of the two federal files. Ranked by underground openings first, because an opening is a way into workings that run on underground.
Town by town
Towns in Iowa with workings inside the town limits
30 towns with the most records inside its own boundary, of 84 towns that hold one.
| Town | Underground openings | Mapped features | Old mine sites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Waterloo | 0 | 20 | 10 |
| Cedar Rapids | 0 | 13 | 7 |
| Spencer | 0 | 14 | 6 |
| Cedar Falls | 0 | 10 | 5 |
| Waverly | 0 | 7 | 4 |
| West Des Moines | 0 | 8 | 2 |
| Clear Lake | 0 | 6 | 2 |
| Milford | 0 | 7 | 1 |
| Evansdale | 0 | 6 | 1 |
| Hawarden | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| Pleasant Hill | 0 | 6 | 1 |
| Belmond | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Johnston | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| Ottumwa | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Rockwell | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Sheldon | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Ackley | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Ames | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Fort Dodge | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Adel | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Decorah | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Edgewood | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Independence | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Le Mars | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Marshalltown | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Redfield | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Rock Rapids | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Washta | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| What Cheer | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Burlington | 0 | 0 | 3 |
The real document
How to get the mine map itself
Iowa DNR Iowa Coal Mines map is the state route in Iowa. Web map of known historic coal mine sites with address search, mine name and site ID search, mine maps and mine information.
OSMRE National Mine Map Repository is the federal archive. It holds maps of more than 275,000 closed and abandoned mines, the images are not downloadable, and they are sent on request: search the repository by state, county, company or mine name, then ask for the sheet by its number through the map request form or at nmmr@osmre.gov.
A mine map is the only document that shows the rooms, the pillars and the depth of cover under a given piece of ground. A point in either federal file is a location, not a property line, and it says nothing about what lies under any particular house.
Emergency
If the ground moves in Iowa
If the ground has opened, if a hole is swallowing water or soil, if a wall or a floor has moved suddenly, or if anyone could fall in, call 911 first. A subsidence hole can keep opening, and the edge of it is not safe to stand on.
When nobody is in immediate danger, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation is the office to call in Iowa. The Mines and Minerals Bureau program for Iowa's 300 plus AML sites and 13,000 acres of abandoned coal mines, mostly in southeast Iowa.
Then tell the people who need the record of it: your insurer, your county emergency management office, and, if the hole is in a road or a right of way, the authority that maintains it. Photograph it with something in the frame for scale, write down the date and the time, and keep measuring it, because how fast it grows is what an engineer will ask about first.
Signs worth reporting before anything opens: doors and windows that stop closing, new cracks that run at an angle across a wall, a floor or a drive that dips, a sudden wet patch or a dry well, and a smell of sulphur or a warm patch of ground where snow melts first.
Cover
Mine subsidence insurance in Iowa
Iowa runs no state mine subsidence insurance programme. Cover, where an insurer offers it at all, is an endorsement on a homeowner policy, and a standard policy excludes earth movement, which is what mine subsidence is.
Ask your own insurer in writing whether the policy covers subsidence from mining, and keep the answer. Seven states run a programme of their own: Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Wyoming, with a protection programme in Colorado.
The data
What the federal files hold for Iowa
The topographic file holds 3,352 mapped mine features inside Iowa, 14 of them underground openings. The sheets they were drawn on were surveyed between 1949 and 1994. The commonest kinds are gravel pit, quarry and sand pit.
The mineral file holds 2,556 worked or prospected sites in Iowa, 1,296 of them named, with 2,545 sites recorded as a past producer. The commodities most often named are sand and gravel, stone and clay.
How the counting was done: every point in both files was placed inside the Census TIGER 2024 county and place boundaries by its own coordinates, not by the county name written in the file, because that name is blank or wrong often enough to matter. A point that falls outside every boundary is counted in no county and no town.
What the counts are not: a count of mines under houses. A single opening can lead to workings that run for miles, and a working with no opening on a sheet is in no count at all. Only a mine map shows the rooms, and only the offices named above hold the maps.
Everything here can be wrong. This is information, not a guarantee: the two federal files can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, the boundaries and the geocoder can be wrong, a point is a location and not a property line, and nothing on this page says that a mine is or is not under any particular property. Do not buy, sell, move, or make any decision about a home or about your safety on this alone. Ask the state mine map office named here for the maps, and have a qualified engineer look at the ground.
Straight answers
Iowa mine map questions
Open only the answer you need.
Can I find out whether a mine is under my house?
Not from this page and not from either federal file. A point is a location, not a property line. The only document that shows the workings under a given piece of ground is the mine map, and in Iowa you ask Iowa DNR Iowa Coal Mines map for it.
Who do I call in Iowa if the ground opens up?
Call 911 first if anyone could be hurt. After that Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation is the office to tell.
Where do the numbers on this page come from?
Two federal files: the USGS Mineral Resources Data System and the USGS USMIN file of mine features digitised from the historical topographic sheets. Every point was placed inside the Census 2024 county and place boundaries by its own coordinates. For Iowa that is 3,352 mapped mine features and 2,556 old mine sites.
Does homeowner insurance cover mine subsidence in Iowa?
A standard policy excludes earth movement, and mine subsidence is earth movement. Iowa runs no state subsidence programme, so ask your own insurer in writing whether any endorsement is available and keep the answer.
What does an underground opening on an old map mean?
It means a surveyor drew a shaft, an adit or a tunnel mouth at that spot when the sheet was made. It is a way in. The workings it leads to can run a long way from it, and the map of those workings is a separate document held by the offices named on this page.
Which Iowa counties have the most recorded workings?
By underground openings first: Scott with 4 openings and 20 mapped features; Clayton with 3 openings and 91 mapped features; Appanoose with 2 openings and 38 mapped features. Each county page lists the named workings inside it and carries its own map.
Is this an official government source?
No. This is a public records guide. The offices it names and links are the official sources, and everything on this page can be wrong: check it with them before you act on it.
All states
Abandoned mine maps by state
Every state page carries that state's own offices, its own counties and its own numbers.
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