By using a serious of belts and lifts, the slate mined in Monson was milled into a finished product by the slate quarry workers. Slate was extremely heavy and consequently transported to the mill from the quarry on a cart using the tracks, shown on the right side of the photo. By using hooks and straps the slate was then lifted, from the cart, onto the table for processing.

The magnitude of the manual component of processing the slate can be seen in the various tools located around the work table, such as the saw and the splitting tool lying atop of the slate on the processing table.