Kennecott Ridgeway Mining Company
is a part of Kennecott Minerals,
a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto,plc ,
one of  the world's leading mining companies.

Kennecott Ridgeway Mining Company (KRMC) operated a 15,000 tons-per-day open-pit gold mine located approximately 5 miles east of the town of Ridgeway, and 25 miles north of Columbia, South Carolina. The mine operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and employed over 100 people. For most of its active mine life, Ridgeway was the only producing gold mine in the Eastern United States, with production beginning in December 1988. The mine produced a gold/silver doré product from bulk-mineable, open-pit deposits, located one mile apart. The mill poured the millionth ounce of gold in 1995. The deposit consisted of two orebodies, the South Pit and the North Pit. Mining in the South pit finished first, and the bulk of the waste from the North Pit was directly backfilled into the South pit, as it was filling with water, on its way towards becoming a lake. Mining in the North Pit ended in November 1999. The whole site is currently being reclaimed.