Chatsbury slate quarries, located on the property now known as Slate Vale south of Taralga, began operation in 1912. Preliminary tests showed that the slate was at least good enough for billiard tables. The original public company launched to exploit the resource used steam traction engines, bullocks, draught horses and teams of newly arrived Welsh miners in an attempt to divert the course of the nearby Tarlo River to get at the slate seam. Failure of this first attempt resulted in a second public company launched in 1915, who succeeded and slate mining began. Slate was also located and quarried at Mannafields, near Towrang.