Atherton Performing Arts Theatre is a heritage-listed former military depot and now theatre at 6 Silo Street, Atherton, Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1943.

Venue: Atherton Performing Arts Theatre
Town: Queensland, AU

Atherton Performing Arts Theatre is a heritage-listed former military depot and now theatre at 6 Silo Street, Atherton, Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1943. It is also known as Atherton WWII Igloo. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 October 2015. The steel-framed "igloo" located in Silo Road, Atherton, currently used as a theatre by Atherton Performing Arts (APA) Inc., is an American Rolling Mill Company (ARMCO) hut, erected c. 1943 at the 13th Australian Advance Ordnance Depot at Tolga. Although the term "igloo" is widely used to describe any corrugated iron-clad building with a roof that forms a complete arch to the ground, in the Queensland context it has been more specifically applied to buildings with open-lattice box truss arches made of nailed hardwood timber. Although originally intended to be covered with camouflage netting and used as aircraft hideouts, in Queensland these igloos were sheeted with iron and used as warehouses, hangars, workshops and recreation halls. In 1947 the igloo was purchased by the Atherton Tableland Maize Marketing Board and was moved to its current location for use as a workshop, and the neighbouring gabled-roof workshop building was probably built at this time. The buildings later functioned as an Atherton Shire Council Depot from c. 1958 to 1979, before the igloo was refurbished as a theatre in 1982-83. The igloo is rare surviving built evidence of an important military facility, and helps demonstrate the impact of World War II (WWII) on the Atherton Tablelands, when the area was a major training and rest and rehabilitation centre for the Australian Imperial Force during the Pacific Campaign of World War II (WWII). The igloo's original steel segmented-arch frame is also a rare surviving wartime example of its type. Atherton, the main centre on the Tablelands, was originally known as Prior's Pocket after Thomas Prior, a timber getter who was the first European to camp there permanently