During the early years of the Great Depression, the New Brunswick Power Corporation built the province's first thermal generating station south of the village on the shores of Grand Lake. Opened in 1931, the Grand Lake Generating Station accessed coal from nearby deposits. An NB Power subsidiary, NB Coal, was the only mining company left in the Minto area and performed strip mining. NB Power closed the Grand Lake Station when its operating license expired in June 2010. As the Station has been NB Coal’s only customer since 2000, NB Coal closed in December 2009. On April 19, 2012 the Grand Lake Generating Station was demolished, and by this time all coal mining in Minto had ended.