The mine operated successfully at first by the Mount Bischoff Tin Mining Company, using sluicing with water from the top of the waterfall in Waratah. In June 1883, the mine installed one of the first hydro-electric generators in Australia and employed it to light the offices, workshop and manager's house. The easy ore was all extracted by 1893 when sluicing was discontinued. Mining continued opencut on the face of the mountain, and underground. The manager of the mine from 1907 to 1919 was John Dunlop Millen; he was credited with the modernisation of the mine's facilities and was regarded by all those associated with the mine's operations as an effective manager. The underground mine closed in 1914, but surface mining continued for some time before it also ceased after the price of tin slumped in 1929. The mine was reopened by the Commonwealth Government in 1942 to support the war effort, but it finally closed in 1947.