Drawers used to hold pay slips

Hannans North Tourist Mine has a pay office building with an original set of drawers which were used to hold the pay and tribute slips for every employee. In the early goldrush, miners would bid against each other for contracts and to work different sections of a mine. Miners were paid a percentage of the value of the ore. This method is known as the tribute system of mining. Tributes worked in groups and had a set portion of the workload assigned to them, which was called a tribute pitch. The pay slips for tributes were paid out through the pay office at each mine.