Albany County, WY Mining Claims & Land Ownership Map
Current BLM claim data, land ownership layers, and rockhounding-ready backcountry navigation for Albany County, WY — built for the field.
Albany County, WY Mining Claims & Land Ownership Map
Current BLM claim data, land ownership layers, and rockhounding-ready backcountry navigation for Albany County, WY — built for the field.
Albany County lies in southeastern Wyoming, spanning from Laramie and the broad Laramie Basin up into the timbered slopes of the Medicine Bow Mountains and Laramie Range. Famed for the historic placer gold rush along Douglas Creek and rich mineral deposits across the Medicine Bow Peak area, the county attracts gold panners, metal detectorists, and mineral specimen collectors. Public domain lands managed by the Medicine Bow National Forest and the BLM Rawlins Field Office offer abundant space for field exploration.
Geologically, Albany County is anchored by ancient Precambrian metamorphic basement rocks, Proterozoic granitic batholiths, and complex shear zones. Hydrothermal activity injected gold-bearing quartz fissure veins, copper sulfides, and platinum-group minerals into schists and gneisses along the Douglas Creek shear zone. Glacial action and fluvial transport weathered these hard-rock lodes, distributing heavy placer gold, platinum flakes, and coarse nuggets across alluvial gravel benches and stream beds along Douglas Creek, Rob Roy Reservoir, and the Laramie River tributaries.
For rockhounds, public terrain across Albany County yields diverse mineral specimens. Metamorphic contact zones produce gem-grade almandine garnets, kyanite, quartz crystals, jasper, and feldspar. Navigating mineral exploration in Albany County demands exact property boundary tracking. Active unpatented placer and lode claims line primary gold streams, intermingling with private ranches, University of Wyoming land, and state trust parcels. Utilizing an active Albany County mining claims map enables prospectors and rockhounds to check live federal BLM records, verify open public domain land, and plan backcountry mountain trips with complete accuracy.
1,436
Current / Not-Closed Albany County, WY Claim Records
16,273
Historical Albany County, WY Claims
140
Albany County, WY Rockhound Hotspots
17,849
Total Albany County, WY Claims & Hotspots
134
Metallic Sites
6
Non-Metallic Sites
Notable finds: Kim · Garnet · Jade
| Material | Sites Recorded |
|---|---|
| Kim | 2 |
| Garnet | 1 |
| Jade | 1 |
976
Lode Claims
460
Placer Claims
| Claim Type | Current Claims |
|---|---|
| Lode Claims | 976 (68.0%) |
| Placer Claims | 460 (32.0%) |
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Save any map area while you have cell service, then navigate active BLM mining claims, surface-management boundaries, and optional layers like elevation contours, roads, and creeks — with zero connectivity out in the field. Offline downloads are included on every paid plan. See plans below →
Official Prospecting Resources for Albany County, WY
What it is: The official county recording portal and public land document archive for Albany County (located in Laramie, WY).
Use case: Recording local unpatented placer and lode mining claim location certificates, filing annual Affidavits of Assessment Work, and searching courthouse land title records.
What it is: The official Bureau of Land Management field office portal overseeing public domain surface management and mineral entry across Albany County.
Use case: Verifying open BLM public domain land availability around the Laramie Range, checking 43 CFR 3809 surface management rules, and inspecting active federal placer and lode claims.
USFS Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests - Laramie Ranger District
What it is: The official U.S. Forest Service portal managing public national forest lands across Douglas Creek and the Medicine Bow Mountains in Albany County.
Use case: Reviewing Forest Service recreational mineral collecting guidelines, checking rules for casual gold panning along Douglas Creek, and verifying national forest boundary lines.
Plans
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For prospectors who cross nearby state lines.
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Single State, Tri-State and All-West all unlock the exact same features — nothing is pay-gated between them, they differ only in how many states you get.
Paid plans renew automatically at the monthly or annual rate you choose until you cancel. Cancel anytime and keep access through the end of your paid period. See our Terms of Use.
Staked Maps isn't crowd-sourced guesswork. Current and historical claim boundaries are parsed directly from the Bureau of Land Management's Mineral & Land Records System (MLRS), which replaced the legacy LR2000 mining claim system in 2021, and kept in sync with our database on a regular schedule. Rockhound Hotspots draw from the USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS), cross-referenced by material so you can see exactly what's been found at a given site. For legal filings, always confirm current status directly with your BLM state office of record; Staked Maps is a research and navigation tool, not a substitute for the official record.
Directly from the Bureau of Land Management's official MLRS (Mineral & Land Records System) case-recordation records, synced into our database on a regular schedule — not scraped or crowd-sourced.
Staked Maps displays the status reported by BLM. Records with a case disposition of Active are labeled Active; historical records come from BLM's closed-claims dataset. These statuses are research information, not a Staked Maps legal determination of claim validity, discovery, ownership or compliance. Verify the current record through MLRS before acting on it.
Free users can search by county. Paid plans add search by claim serial number, plus each claim's full legal (aliquot) description and BLM records link.
Staked Maps currently tracks 1,436 current federal mining claim/site records and 16,273 historical claim records from BLM MLRS, plus 140 Albany County, WY mineral-occurrence records derived from USGS MRDS.
A premium map layer of documented mineral occurrences, prospects and mines sourced from USGS MRDS and labeled by material where available. These records are research leads, not a directory of verified public collecting sites.
Yes — the live map covers all of Wyoming, not just Albany County. Other Wyoming counties with a dedicated page: Fremont County, Carbon County, Sweetwater County and Park County.
Albany County Clerk's Office is Albany County, WY's primary office for filing and researching mining claims — see the Official Filing & Information Links section above for the direct link and more resources.
Regulatory and editorial content last reviewed against official records · Source: Albany County Clerk's Office · USGS MRDS
Information hosted on Staked Maps is compiled from publicly available data streams provided by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and relevant state geographic clearinghouses. Staked Maps accepts no liability for the content of this geospatial data, or for the consequences of any real-world exploration, land entry, or staking actions taken on the basis of the information provided via this application interface.
Staked Maps makes no warranty, expressed or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the pinpoint accuracy, reliability, completeness, latency, or programmatic utility of these geospatial data layers, or for the improper interpretation of these data grids.
These mapping layers and related graphics are visual convenience aids only; they are not legal documents and must never be used as such. The data may not be used to legally determine title, mineral ownership, valid description boundaries, jurisdictional authorities, or land restrictions in place on public or private land. Natural backcountry hazards may or may not be depicted on topographies, and land users are strictly mandated to exercise caution. Federal records are dynamic and change constantly. The end-user is exclusively responsible for validating current land classifications with local BLM field offices and managing compliance accordingly.