Murtoa: Why Did Wartime Wheat Need a Forest of Poles?

Murtoa sits on Victoria’s Wimmera plain. After the railway arrived in 1878, it developed as a receiving point for wheat grown across the surrounding district. Its most distinctive structure is not the station or a concrete silo, but the Murtoa No. 1 Grain Store, completed in 1942 and now usually called the Stick Shed.

During the Second World War, shipping disruptions restricted wheat exports while harvests still had to be received. Emergency storage could not wait for conventional steel or finely finished timber. Hundreds of unmilled poles were used to support a vast roof, with hoop iron, cables and corrugated sheeting creating an enormous storage space in a short time. Inside, the columns resemble a forest. That cathedral-like effect was not the design’s original aim; it is the visible result of scarce materials, urgency and rural building knowledge.

The shed later lost its working role as bulk grain handling changed, but it did not vanish with the old process. It shows that Murtoa is more than a town preserving an unusual building. Railways, farms, wartime transport and national grain policy were compressed here into local labour and infrastructure. Its heritage value lies not only in rarity, but in preserving the scale at which a global crisis altered an agricultural community.

https://www.yarriambiack.vic.gov.au/Discover-Yarriambiack/Towns-To-Visit/Murtoa-Town
https://www.thestickshed.com.au/
https://www.visitvictoria.com/regions/grampians/see-and-do/art-and-culture/history-and-heritage/the-stick-shed