Metal Detecting in Missouri

1. The rule, in full

Missouri – 10 CSR 90-2.030(27), which hands the rule to policy

Read from the Code of State Regulations published by the Missouri Secretary of State, 10 CSR 90-2 (pages dated 11/30/25); rule 90-2.030 last "Amended: Filed May 28, 2025, effective Dec. 30, 2025." Division of State Parks policy read from mostateparks.com. Checked 21 Sep 2026.

Operative text, 10 CSR 90-2.030(27):

"(A) State parks and historic sites provide opportunities for our visitors to engage in varied recreational activities. However, the division maintains the right to prohibit or otherwise restrict recreational activities that are not in keeping with the mission and objectives of the Department of Natural Resources, that may damage property, that require special safety measures, or that conflict with other uses of an area. Such prohibitions or restrictions shall be determined by the director, who may establish policy or procedures to regulate conduct. (B) Specific recreational activities that are restricted by policy include using metal detectors, caving, rock climbing and rappelling, diving, and conducting special events and activities."

Scope: the rule's stated purpose is the use of facilities "provided in state parks", and (27)(A) speaks of "State parks and historic sites" under the Division of State Parks.

Determination: 10 CSR 90-2.030(27) covers Division of State Parks land only. It does NOT reach municipal parks, and it does NOT reach Department of Conservation land, which is a different agency with its own chapter, below.

The second instrument: Department of Conservation areas, 3 CSR 10-11

Read from the Code of State Regulations published by the Missouri Secretary of State, chapter 3 CSR 10-11 (pages dated 7/31/26) and the Wildlife Code definitions chapter 3 CSR 10-20.805 (7/31/24), both PDFs parsed locally. Checked 3 Oct 2026.

Added 3 Oct 2026 during the forestry and wildlife sweep. This is a different agency, not a different division. The entry above concerns the Division of State Parks, in the Department of Natural Resources. The Department of Conservation is established separately under Art. IV, sections 40 and 45 of the Missouri Constitution, which is the authority 3 CSR 10-11.105 cites, and it manages roughly a thousand conservation areas. Nothing in 10 CSR 90-2 touches them.

Scope, 3 CSR 10-11.105:

"The special regulations in this chapter apply on lands and waters (referred to as department areas) owned or leased by the Department of Conservation."

That parenthesis is the whole definition. "Department areas" does not appear in the Wildlife Code's own definitions chapter, 3 CSR 10-20.805, which was read in full; 10-11.105 is the only place the term is fixed.

Operative text, 3 CSR 10-11.110(1):

"Department areas may be used only as authorized by this chapter, except these rules shall not restrict department employees or their designees when conducting official events or activities. Department areas may be used only in accordance with the following: (A) Department areas designated as open to the public may be accessed and used for hiking, sightseeing, and nature observation. … (C) The following activities are prohibited on department areas and may not be authorized by a special use permit: 1. Destruction, defacing, or removal of department property; 2. Digging or excavating, except for scientific purposes as authorized by a Letter of Authorization for Plant Collecting;
3. Guiding for pay; …"

Determination: on Department of Conservation land, digging or excavating is prohibited outright and cannot be permitted. That is the part a reader acts on. Recovering a detected target means digging, and 10-11.110(1)(C)2 forecloses it in terms, with the clause "and may not be authorized by a special use permit" removing the route that exists for most other restricted activities in the chapter. The exception is a Letter of Authorization for Plant Collecting, for scientific purposes, which is not a detecting permit by any reading.

Borderline: the chapter never names metal detectors, and we are not reading a sweeping ban into an enumeration.

The structure invites one. 10-11.110(1) says department areas "may be used only as authorized by this chapter"; (1)(A) names hiking, sightseeing and nature observation; (1)(B) lists the activities the chapter authorises elsewhere, and metal detecting is not among them. On that reading, carrying a detector across a conservation area is already an unauthorised use before anyone digs.

But the rule does not say so, and the inference is ours, not the Code's. A permissive-by-enumeration structure can as easily be read as regulating the listed activities and leaving ordinary presence alone – nobody thinks birdwatching with binoculars needs to appear on the list. This entry therefore states what is established and stops. Digging: prohibited, no permit. Sweeping without digging: unsettled, and nothing in chapter 10-11 settles it.

This is the same treatment as Oklahoma's "exploration", Ohio's "archaeological survey or salvage work" and Georgia's "recreational area". The practical answer is the same as theirs too: the Department of Conservation can say what it permits on its own land, and a reader who wants to sweep a conservation area should ask it, because the digging prohibition means a find cannot lawfully be recovered either way.

Conservation-area sources: sos.mo.gov 3c10-11.pdf and 3c10-20.pdf (PDFs, parsed locally); Art. IV secs 40, 45, Mo. Const. as cited in 10-11.105. Checked 3 Oct 2026.

The rule delegates to policy, so here the policy is the operative text. This is the reverse of Florida: Missouri's regulation names metal detectors and says the restriction lives in policy. The Division publishes it:

"metal detecting is allowed in certain areas in 11 state parks; however, registration is required. The activity is allowed only on specific sand beaches at these state parks"

"State parks and historic sites protect our natural and cultural history, and no object of historical or archaeological value or interest may be removed from a state park."

The registration form lists the eleven: Cuivre River, Finger Lakes, Lake of the Ozarks, Lake Wappapello, Long Branch, Pomme de Terre, Stockton, Trail of Tears, Harry S Truman, Mark Twain and Watkins Mill, each with seasonal hours. Registration is free and "must be completed each calendar year". Its rules include:

"Any solid-faced digging or probing tool cannot exceed 12 inches in overall length and 3 inches in width. Any sand digging or sifting scoop cannot exceed 12 inches in overall length and 6 inches in width. Suction dredges and grappling hooks may not be used."

"Contact the facility manager if a historic, archaeological or item valued at $10 or more is found."

The page must say the list, hours and tool limits are Division policy under (27)(B), not text of the regulation, and carry the checked date: a policy can change without a rulemaking.

No statute reaches municipal land. The Revised Statutes of Missouri were searched for an antiquities provision. RSMo 253.420 requires a permit for salvage or excavation of a submerged or embedded abandoned shipwreck meeting National Register criteria. RSMo 194.410.1 makes it a class E felony to knowingly disturb "a marked or unmarked human burial site", wherever it is. Neither is a detecting rule, and no general antiquities act reaching city land was found.

Sources: sos.mo.gov 10 CSR 90-2 (PDF, parsed locally); mostateparks.com activity/metal_detecting and form/metal-detecting-registration-form; revisor.mo.gov 253.420, 194.410. Checked 21 Sep 2026.

What was read for the land-class sweep, and what was not. Read: 3 CSR 10-11 and 3 CSR 10-20.805 in full. Not read: the Department of Conservation's other chapters. The finding above therefore covers what was read and nothing beyond it – see sweep/README.md, "A KNOWN LIMIT OF THIS SWEEP", on why a chapter set aside on its title is an unread chapter.

The consequence, and Missouri's statute deliberately declines to grade it

The rule hands the detector question to policy. The statute behind the rule hands the consequence to other law, and does not say which:

Mo. Rev. Stat. 253.035, "Rules and regulations, procedure": 1. "The director of the department of natural resources may make and promulgate all reasonable rules and regulations necessary for the proper maintenance, improvement, acquisition and preservation of all state parks." 3. "Any person who shall violate a rule issued pursuant to subsection 2 of this section pertaining to the conduct of park visitors or the use by the public of park facilities shall be subject to removal from a state park and shall be subject to other punishment as otherwise provided by law."

Read 253.035(3) carefully, because it is doing less than it looks like. The one consequence it states outright is removal from the park. Beyond that it points at "other punishment as otherwise provided by law" and names no statute, no grading and no figure. So Missouri's own park statute supplies no fine, no misdemeanour class and no maximum.

And 10 CSR 90-2 supplies none either. The chapter was searched: the only occurrence of "penalt" anywhere in it is in the animal-bite provision at 90-2.030(11), about owners of animals being "subject to fines, penalties, and any necessary capture, disease tests, impound, quarantine fees, and medical bills". Nothing in the chapter grades a detector or conduct violation.

This is the context for the $250,000 figure that circulates about Missouri, and it is not Missouri's. $250,000 is the felony maximum under ARPA, 16 U.S.C. 470ee, which applies on federal and Indian land. No Missouri provision read by this project carries it, and 253.035(3) is the section that would have to.

What a Missouri reader should take from this. The realistic consequence of detecting where division policy prohibits it is being told to stop and being removed from the park, with any further punishment depending on some other statute that 253.035 does not identify. That is a weaker consequence than most states in this directory, and it is weak because the legislature wrote it that way – not because the research is incomplete.

Mo. Rev. Stat. 253.080 was read the same day and is not a penalty section: it is the director's power to construct and operate facilities, charge fees and award concession contracts. 253.090 is the State Park Earnings Fund. Neither grades a visitor's conduct.

Deepened 18 Oct 2026. Mo. Rev. Stat. 253.035, 253.080 and 253.090 read that day from the Revised Statutes of Missouri at revisor.mo.gov, published by the Revisor of Statutes, and archived with their sha256; 10 CSR 90-2 re-searched from the copy archived 21 Sep 2026.

2. Cities in Missouri that publish a rule

6 cities in Missouri publish a rule we can quote, out of 79 checked.

Of the 79 checked, 42 had pages on the city’s own site that we found and read. For the other 37 we could not locate a municipal source, so nothing is claimed about them either way.

3. County rules

County rules exist in Missouri, and they govern county land only. 1 county rule surfaced while checking cities in this state. Each was read and then set aside, because a county park rule does not answer whether a city park allows detecting, and it is not the state rule either. They are listed because their existence is the useful fact: if you are in a county park, a separate rule probably applies to you.

0 of these 1 name their county in the text that was read; the rest name only “county park” or “county parks”, so the source is given instead of a county name. A county is never inferred from a web address.

4. Cities checked - no published rule

73 cities in Missouri were checked and have no published rule on this page. Of those, 72 returned no rule, and 1 did return something that has not been published – mostly rules that turned out to govern county land, which are in the county section above. A city here is not a city where detecting is allowed. It is a city whose own published material did not answer the question.

All 73 were checked on 13 September 2026, in one sweep, so that date applies to every row. 1 has no municipal site recorded and is shown without a link rather than dropped, because dropping them would understate what was checked.

5. Clubs in Missouri

14 in our directory for Missouri - 10 verified against their own website or group, 4 we could not verify. Verified means we opened the link and read it. All Missouri clubs on the club directory, with meeting nights and contacts where we have them.

• 24th State Relic Recovery Members Group - Facebook group · verified
• 417 Relic Hunters - Facebook page · Springfield · verified
• Gateway Metal Detecting Club - gatewaymetaldetectingclub.com · St. Louis · verified
• Metal Detecting – MISSOURI - Facebook group · verified
• Midwest Coin and Relic Hunters - midwestcoinshooters.com · verified
• Missouri Metal Detecting – Coins Relics Silver Gold - Facebook group · verified
• MoKan Search and Recovery - Facebook group · North Kansas City · verified
• Ozarks Metal Detecting Club - Facebook group · verified
• SW Missouri Metal Detecting! - Facebook group · verified
• The Missouri Relic Busters Metal Detecting Club - Facebook group · verified
• Midwest Coin Shooters - could not verify
• Midwest Coinshooters and Historical Club - Florissant · could not verify
• Springfield Detectors Club - Springfield · could not verify
• Three Trails Historical Search Team - Independence · could not verify

6. Land this page does not cover

This page answers for Missouri state land, and for city and county land where the state rule reaches it. Several other kinds of ground are not covered here, and naming them is more honest than letting a reader assume the page is complete.

Tribal land. This directory does not cover it, and will not.

There are 574 federally recognised tribal nations. Each is a sovereign jurisdiction with its own law, its own permitting, its own enforcement and its own cultural-resource provisions, and none of them is answered by a state's code or by any federal rule quoted on these pages. A one-line instruction to "get tribal permission" would be worse than this paragraph, because it implies one process and one authority where there are 574. If you are on or near tribal land, the governing law is that nation's, and the place to ask is that nation's own offices. Nothing on this page applies there.

BLM land is covered, partly, in its own place. The Bureau of Land Management holds about 245 million acres and the federal rule names metal detectors and permits them, which is the opposite of the national park rule. See BLM land: the detector is named, and permitted. That page covers the base regulation; it does not yet cover the supplementary rules individual BLM State Directors issue for particular field offices.

Named and not examined. These are recorded so their absence is visible rather than silent. No claim is made about any of them:

• Military withdrawn land, including ranges and training areas.
• Bureau of Reclamation land, which surrounds a great many reservoirs.
• Water district and irrigation district land.
• Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas and National Conservation Areas, which carry designations of their own. And one general point about signs. The commonest piece of reasoning in this subject is "there was no sign, so it was allowed." Arizona's State Land Department answers it in writing, in condition 2 of its own Recreational Permit terms:

"You will comply with all laws, rules, regulations and ordinances. Posting is not required for these provisions to be enforceable."

That is Arizona's sentence about Arizona's provisions and this directory does not present it as the law of any other state. But the proposition it states is the one to carry: nothing read for this project makes a published rule's enforceability depend on a sign at the boundary. Where posting does matter, a specific provision says so, and that provision is quoted on the page where it occurs.