With a population of about 5000 and producing just lead at the time, the town banded together to set about providing a safe shelter in case of attack.

Mount Isa Mines provided the equipment and a foreman, Wally Onton, and miners gave up their time at the end of an eight-hour work day to help with the building.

The Underground Hospital was dug out and set up in just 15 weeks.

Most of the work was done by hand with water and electricity also connected.

The main hospital in Mount Isa had arrived by rail in 1931.

It was transported by wagon and then rail from a closed mining town west of Cloncurry called Kuridala.

The Underground Hospital, built into the ground behind the main hospital, fulfilled its brief of being a safe haven, often being used several times each week.

“Between 1942 and 1945 during the war years there was an air raid siren that sounded to alert the community of a possible attack,” Underground Hospital publicity officer Margaret Medley explained.

“When it sounded all the nurses had to immediately evacuate the Base Hospital and move all the patients to the underground. As soon as the threat was cleared they would have to turn around and move everyone back again. It was not unusual for this to happen several times a week, either as a false alarm or as a drill to keep everyone on the ball.”

The main hospital had 32 beds and the Underground Hospital could take the same number of patients. Built in a u-shape, each section of the Underground Hospital slept different patients; either the women, babies or men.

“If for any reason they couldn’t move a patient from the main hospital when the siren went off, they would cover them in blanket or a mattress. Anything they could to conceal them and hope for the best.”

Thankfully, the Underground Hospital was never used or needed for its intended purpose.

After the war years and until the late 1950s, the Underground Hospital was used as sleeping quarters for the nurses on night shift as it was cool, dark and quiet.

In 1959 when the new Base Hospital was being built, constructors took away some of the hillside which damaged the Underground Hospital.

With much community protest, the remainder of the underground area was saved yet left unused.

In 1994 vandals burnt out the timbering and destroyed the interior of the Underground Hospital.

The community had to decide what to do with the facility and it was decided to commission a historian, Dr Peter Bell to carry out a study on the facility.

It was found to be the only structure of its type ever built in Australia during war time for civilians, by civilians.

A community group was formed and during the next five years the hospital was completely restored and later received an award from the National Trust of Queensland for heritage restoration.

Along with the Underground Hospital is the Beth Anderson Museum, named after a former Mount Isa deputy matron of nursing.

The museum building once made up four wards of the Mount Isa Hospital in the 1930s, including the private maternity ward.

It is now filled with hundreds of pieces of historical medical equipment.

Everything from special beds for spinal injury patients through to old dentist chairs, a placenta disposal unit, an old-fashioned breast pump and hundreds of medical instruments and old medicines can be seen and marvelled on site.

“All the medication is from the time pre-morphine and pre-painkillers. It’s since been rendered as good as water. But it’s just incredible where the stuff comes from.

“We’ve had people drive from Toowoomba to hand deliver things to us. When the hospital closed down, all the equipment was sold off over the years but when it was decided to re-open it, people came forward from everywhere to donate it all back.”

The complex is now visited by up to 7000 tourists each year and is operated entirely by volunteers.

It is the largest medical display open to the public in Australia.

The Underground Hospital and Beth Anderson Museum is open seven days from 10am to 2pm.