5 Old Mining Towns Where You Can Still Go Underground

A coal town tucked into the mountains of Harlan County, where you climb into a rail car and ride straight into the hillside of a historic Appalachian coal mine.

The town above the mine

Lynch was built from scratch around 1917 as a company town for a coal operation tied to U.S. Steel, and for decades it was one of the largest coal camps in the region. Many of the company buildings still stand.

Portal 31 was one of the mine's main entrances. Today it's run as an exhibition mine that tells the story of the miners who worked here, from the early company years to modern mining.

A preserved silver-mining town in the heart of the Coeur d'Alene Mining District, where a trolley carries you from downtown to a real underground silver mine.

The town above the mine

Wallace grew up in the 1880s as the Silver Valley became one of the richest silver-producing regions in the country.

Its entire downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and brick storefronts from the mining boom still line the streets.

A city whose skyline is still punctuated by steel mine headframes, with a museum set on a real mine site where you can go underground.

The town above the mine

Butte was once called "the Richest Hill on Earth." Its copper helped wire America during the rise of electricity, and the mines drew workers from around the world.

The World Museum of Mining sits on the site of the Orphan Girl Mine, with a preserved headframe and a recreated mining town alongside its exhibits.

The legendary Comstock Lode boomtown, with wooden sidewalks above ground and historic mine workings you can walk into below.

The town above the mine

The discovery of the Comstock Lode in 1859 set off one of the richest silver and gold rushes in American history, and Virginia City boomed on top of it.

A young Samuel Clemens worked for the town's Territorial Enterprise newspaper, where he first signed his work "Mark Twain." Historic C Street still looks much like an Old West boomtown.

A Black Hills gold-rush town with Wild West history on every block and a historic gold mine you can walk into on the edge of town.

The town above the mine

Deadwood sprang up in 1876 during the Black Hills gold rush. That same year Wild Bill Hickok was shot here during a poker game, and he and Calamity Jane are buried in the town's Mount Moriah Cemetery.

The Broken Boot Gold Mine dates to the town's early mining era and now runs guided tours through its old workings.