The Mersey coalfield extends from Spreyton to Railton and was discovered at the beginning of 1851.
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Coal seams and specimens were visible in the Don River, and early in that year, travellers en route from the Leven River to Launceston were forced to stop for the night at the camp of two burly paling splitters near the Don.
They noticed that the campfire was burning coal.
For five gold sovereigns the timbermen showed them where the coal was located, and the travellers immediately bought a huge 1700-acre property which encompassed the area between the Mersey and Don Rivers.
The Mersey Coal Co was established in Launceston shortly afterwards and began operations in 1853 digging shafts and building tramways.
They spent £20,000 but failed to make a commercial proposition of it and gave up in 1857.
Many more mines were established around Latrobe over the years, beginning with ex-convict Zephaniah Williams' Denison Colliery from 1855.
He constructed a jetty on the Mersey and got the government to put a road in, but then also folded in 1859.
After him came the Alfred and Don Collieries 1855-83, Aberdeen Co 1931-5 and the Novelty Coal Co in 1938-9.
The Illamatha Collieries ran intermittently from 1901 to 1961, but with their closure the field was abandoned for good.
The prospecting for coal in 1851 quickly led to the discovery of a "combustible shale", and it was soon realised that a belt of oil shale, of late carboniferous origin and unrelated to the coal deposits, stretched from Latrobe to Quamby Brook.
Oil shale was regarded as nothing more than a curiosity in the 19th century, and even as late as 1903 a Royal Commission doubted that oil would ever replace coal as a fuel, though it proved itself useful for laying down dust on roads.
This didn't stop the formation of the Tasmanian Shale & Oil Co by Adelaide speculators, and active prospecting by them was undertaken from about 1901.
They foresaw the demand for oil as a lubricant and motor fuel, but lost their property for lack of work in 1909.
A new company of the same name took over and commenced mining in June 1910 at China Flats, on the river four kilometres south of Latrobe.
They built retorts to produce 20 tons of oil, but closed in 1914.
With the announcement of a reward for a payable oilfield in 1920, there was much new interest in oil shale.
The Tasmanian Cement Co built a retort and mined in the 1920s to provide fuel for their cement works at Railton, but it wasn't practical.
Up to 1935 many other companies, notably the Australian Shale Oil Co (1924-27), tried to produce oil, mainly at the Great Bend on the Mersey River near Latrobe, but only about 360,000 gallons were retorted in total.
Interest has continued to the present day, but no viable operation has ever been established.