 During these years mining activity was at its height.The town supported a brewery, two hotels, post and telegraph office, school, police station, doctor, court-house, church, baker, butcher, blacksmith, hospital, railway station, cricket team, race meetings, a saddle maker, carriage maker, mining exchange, several shops and, at times, as many as 500 people.Mechanisation, mine closure, drought and the Great Depression led to the slow decline of Beltana as a service centre for the region from 1920 onwards.