Even after the demand for dairy declined in the wake of World War II, the program functioned reasonably well for years. NOVAKOVIC: As you can imagine, the cheese company that's in the business of selling cheese is going to say - hey, what's the deal here? The Missouri Penitentiary in Jefferson City is rumored to be riddled with spirits. The idea of "government cheese" is an enduring blip in the American psyche. But there is a chance that the government may be in the business of government cheese again. JIMMY CARTER: Now, although I am a farmer, I'm not in favor of guaranteeing farmers a profit. The cheesy story all started in 1949, when the Agricultural Act of 1949 gave the Commodity Credit Corporation, a government-owned corporation dedicated to stabilizing farm incomes, the authority. One particularly large pile of it resides in the former limestone quarries underneath Springfield, Missouri, where Kraft Heinz keeps a considerable cache of cheese in these temperature-controlled facilities. ASCHEBROCK: But then we had the issue with storing the stuff. DUFFIN: This is a basic supply-and-demand problem. Pretty quickly the small opening expanded into a paved, two-lane road running through a cavern with ceilings high enough to accommodate a tractor-trailer. Kansas City even has special ordinances that govern the use of underground space, including how the roofs must be supported, and about 3,000 to 4,000 people work full-time in the cave system, Hasan said. Jimmy Carter's campaign promise to help farmers in 1976 not only gave us government cheese but also milk mustaches. SUBSCRIBE for Every Delicious Theory! Over the years, the industry has found all sorts of ways to get rid of its excess supplysome more insidious than others. We walk inside. Each year, several foot races are run in the cave system. His creation, SubTropolis, is the largest of the underground facilities with nearly 6 million square feet of industrial space for lease. There's a lot of history buried beneath Kansas City streets, from Prohibition-era passageways and underground caves to the oldest bar in Missouri. DUFFIN: It was 1976. Government . In 1949, the Agricultural Act allowed a government agency to buy up dairy products to stabilize prices. The government would buy up, say, massive amounts of corn or wheat and then just throw it into a silo until we needed it for some reason. The reason why the dairy industry gets such preferential treatment is its status as this uncontested food in the diet, Wiley says. Love Kansas? These limestone caverns arent the only channels running under the city. NOVAKOVIC: It's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. 1 By Kimberlee N. Ried Enlarge Plan for the National Archives at Kansas City. The air is cool and the barroom massive almost cathedral-like. There you go. $20.00 per adult Kansas City Segway Tour: Art and Glide 80 Recommended Segway Tours from $69.00 per adult SEA LIFE Kansas City Aquarium Admission Ticket 66 Aquariums from $23.65 per adult Kansas City Crossroads Art District and Westside Urban Hike 17 Recommended Adventure Tours from $39.00 per adult Strawberry Hill and Downtown KCK Hike 12 DUFFIN: Like, hey, people of America, wouldn't you like to drink more milk? The government tiptoed back into the cheese business in 2019 when the Trump administration said it was using the CCC program again to provide large subsidies to offset the effects of its trade. But every instinct I had said, oh, this - I'm not so sure this is going to work out so well. It is huge. Uncover the finest, most undercover experiences in Kansas City. NOVAKOVIC: (Laughter) That was the unintended consequence that was fun. On a given day, kids scramble over its playground, neighbors walk their dogs through its green acres, and teens meet for pick-up games on its soccer fields and volleyball courts. Like SubTropolis, the strangely sterile space is separated by humungous numbered pillars. Heap the flour on your countertop and make a well in the center. MALONE: Government cheese became a symbol of a crappy government handout. (SOUNDBITE OF KAZAM'S "ROMANTIQUE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. The U.S. has too much cheese 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact. Deep under Springfield, Missouri, lies a cheese cave of industrial proportions, a 2-million-square-foot refrigerated warehouse called Springfield Underground.Since 2008, Kraft Foods has rented . HOME; INTERIORS; EXTERIORS; OFFICE & PORTRAITS; PUBLICITY/EVENTS; CONSTRUCTION; INFO The main brewing cellar, now outfitted with seating areas, a bar and raised stage, reaches 55 feet underground. It is estimated that Kansas has more than 700 and caves, and almost 350 are in the Red Hills. By Emily Baron Cadloff Global Research, May 30, 2022 Modern Farmer 25 May 2022 Region: USA Theme: Global Economy MALONE: The story of government cheese has become a kind of parable of how government intervention in markets can have this, like, butterfly effect. MALONE: Novakovic says the government could have destroyed the cheese. 4701 Wyandotte Street. https://bit.ly/2CdCooV Theorists, did you know the government is hiding caves full of cheese from us? The United States Postal Service and the United States Environmental Protection Agency lease spaces within SubTropolis, the United States Postal Service for its collectible stamp operations and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for their Region-7 Training and Logistics Center. History is a mystery. And do you, like, smack your forehead? MALONE: This must be a common confusion in the industry. One of the Heim brothers helped build a theme park there called Electric Park, which in turn gave inspiration to J. Rieger & Co.s outdoor area of the same name. I dont even need a coat in the winter.. Offer available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). glimpse into the void but a modern-day viewing is near-impossible. And you turn it, and you pull out a core of cheese. MALONE: So this leaves a couple of options. At Kanopolis park, near the lake of the same name, there's a short trail from a parking area that leads you through the brush into a clearing. But as Kansas Citians began to rely more on buses and their own vehicles in the 1940s and 1950s, the 8th Street tunnel ceased operations. Why Did the U.S. Government Amass More Than a Billion Pounds of Cheese? Government cheese arrived at our home in enormous uncut yellow blocks wrapped in white nondescript cardboard. Caves are usually found underground. But what Andy Novakovic knew is that it's one thing to provide stability, it is another to step into the market in a big way at maybe the wrong time because playing with price controls is playing with fire. MALONE: Right. You could destroy the surplus, but that looks pretty bad. It dates back to a time when farmers were having a tough time in the 1920s and 30s and a growing feeling that the government should help., In the early 1900s, the growing availability of refrigerated transport allowed dairy farmers to sell their product on an unprecedented scale. And then on the other side, the government tried to replace some of their artificial demand for milk with new real demand for milk. Springfield Underground, an Erlen Group Company is a commercial industrial park with the advantage of underground storage. Cave Tours Missouri, long known as the "Cave State," has almost 6,400 caves, and Missouri State Parks showcases four of the best for public tours. MALONE: You can see pictures of the cheese cave. Andy Novakovic is a dairy economist at Cornell University. ASCHEBROCK: And that's what you grade. Oh, boy - here we go. Love Missouri? In the 2000s, you could still take an official tour and potentially find a way in for a D.I.Y. Melt Two tbps of butter into a skillet, then add the onion, garlic and mushrooms. Many tenants at . While the humble cheese factory looks like any other food processing factory dotting a city's industrial zone, hidden underground is a vast and fiercely guarded network of 13 caves, stretching a . Well, sort of. They feature an abundance of ores, as well as hostile mobs that spawn in the darkness. [1] The complex contains almost 10.5 miles (16.9km) of illuminated, paved roads and several miles of railroad track. In a blog post by writer Libbie Bond, the Deans are described as among the first in America to visualize abandoned mines as commercial real estate.. How we got to this point is a long story, and it starts during a national dairy shortage in the 1970s. The guaranteed milk price, which had been going up automatically every six months, was eventually frozen. DUFFIN: Government cheese starts to show up in all kinds of popular culture. Theres evidence the second story was a ballroom, complete with a stage, dumbwaiter and box office window. And it is also very cold - good for the government cheese, though. For example, the United States Postal Service uses the space for its collectible stamp operations, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency leases spaces within for their Region-7 Training and Logistics Center. DUFFIN: Bob's job was to make sure that all of the cheese met USDA grade A cheddar standards - the right moisture level, the proper shade of yellowish-orange, the correct flavor profile. See. YOU CAN, Argentina's El Impenetrable Opens Up New Options For Its People, How Laos Got Its First Buffalo Dairy Farm, How the Capones Strong-Armed Their Way Into the Dairy Business, The French Art of Cheese-Label Collecting, The Last Cheesemakers of the Eastern Himalayas, Show & Tell: Inside a House of Hot Sauce With Vic Clinco, The Secret to China's Bounciest Meatballs. This area is also a great place to go hiking, camping, and fishing. This was generally the approach that we would use to support other kinds of farm industries. The 55,000,000-square-foot, 1,100-acre underground storage facility is believed to be the worlds largest site of its kind. Youll have to climb down to get to it, led mysteriously by a sequence of ramps and labyrinthine walkways. Metallic, sour, whey taint, weedy, onion, barny, lipase and sulfide. We can't find a market for it. MALONE: For a lot of people who grew up in the 1970s and '80s, you cannot overstate how influential government cheese became. No? Looking for more unusual places in Missouri? NOVAKOVIC: It was pretty hard to predict that it would get as bad as it got. The new iteration of J. Rieger & Co. and what would become a tasting room, lounge, speakeasy and outdoor beer garden began taking shape in 2014. So how in the world did the U.S. end up with a mountain of slowly molding cheese? Makes sense, considering the natural limestone ledge bordering the river. DUFFIN: By the early 1980s, the dairy support program was costing taxpayers around $2 billion a year. NOVAKOVIC: So it's fundamental economics. CHRIS FARLEY: (As Matt Foley) I'm here to tell you that you're going to end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE"). MALONE: Even if that bite just looks like some delicious cheese. The USDA has a large presence in Kansas City, Missouri, and when it found itself with millions of pounds of surplus dairy and needed a safe, climate-controlled place to put it all, it started to search locally. Cave cheese is any cheese that is ripened within a cave or cave-like environment, where consistently low temperatures and high levels of humidity are perfect for supporting the chemical reactions that take place in the cheese aging process. DUFFIN: After the break - how the government finally got out of this mess and why the government may be getting back into the cheese game. Very, very expensive cheese. Westons downtown district was established in 1837, so theres a lot of history here. Do you or does someone you know work at SubTropolis? Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. SNOOP DOGG: (Rapping) And we ghetto like a [expletive] hot buttered toast in the mornin' with some government cheese. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider If you loved visiting this stunning spot, take a trip to Fisher Cave in Meramec State Park. Roanoke Cave . Lever 2, more demand - you could try to convince the public that they want to drink more milk. The two larger caves were used by the Faris family as a spring house, generator room and, a schoolhouse as well. DUFFIN: So the basic question was, what kinds of milk products can the government buy and store? Each week, KCUR's Adventure! Kenny Malone has the epic tale of government cheese. The cheese came in handy for Ronald Reagan's "government cheese" program, which released 30 million pounds of the lactose-laden dairy product (paywall) to any state that applied. MALONE: Who's got time for dating when you're traveling around eating cheese everywhere? USCIS opened its National Records Center in a cave in Lee's Summit, Missouri, in 1999. It certainly was on the edge of that. This video is private Watch on There are several other cave warehouse locations in the U.S., including one in Bonner Springs, Kansas, Springfield, Missouri, and the the SubTropolis underground complex located in northeastern Kansas City, Missouri. Thank you! Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus. Have you seen these caves before? And so they try to hire more cheese graders. Park University in the Kansas City suburb of Parkville has dozens of classrooms and offices in the caves and rents out other underground space to businesses. Which makes for a thriving underground business community, as unnerving as a giant hole in the side of a bluff may be. . give poor Americans a slice of the cheese surplus., exactly popular with all of its recipients. Have you seen these caves before? While many of the caves feature paved roads and utilities, other areas consist of dirt floors and uncontrolled entrances. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus milk and turning it into processed commodity cheesehad backfired, hard. And he started floating this idea. DUFFIN: But cheese just doesn't travel well. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has the largest domestic reserve of cheese of all varieties, including cheddar, Swiss and American . Cheese Caves Myth: Debunked. Youve heard about the subterranean chamber beneath the land near Worlds of Fun, right? (Dean Russell/Here & Now) This article is more than 4 years old. India and Bhutan's yak herders face steep challenges. No, it isn't money but actually cheese, 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact, stored in a cave in Missouri. Slice a package of sausages or dice some ham, or both, you do you. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: A state official estimated 300,000 people will get a taste of today's cheese. Extensive limestone mining in the late 1800s and early 1900s created the millions of square feet of caves that are scattered throughout metropolitan Kansas City, in Kansas and Missouri. SubTropolis is a 55,000,000-square-foot (5,100,000m2), 1,100-acre (4.5km2) artificial cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, that is claimed to be the world's largest underground storage facility. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Humanpodcast. Yet part of this cheese mountain represents an enduring surplusa very literal representation of the dairy industrys mismatch with the realties of the market. sign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday. Behold the power of cheese. DUFFIN: Or you can try to get your surplus goods to people who were not going to buy it anyway. We hope so. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. There were 40-pound blocks and 500-pound barrels. The government was demanding an unnatural amount of milk and so farmers were supplying an unnatural amount of milk. Go to the shop Go to the shop. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: The year was 1977. Youll want to check out this cool hiking trail that has another cave youre welcome to explore. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. We also suggest picking up a digital hygrometer to measure cheese humidity, whether you're simply storing cheese in your Grotto or having fun with home cheesemaking. CALLAHAN: So you'd be - it's 17 feet, 16 feet. With temperatures maintained at 25F and 35F, staff have nicknamed the space the "Ice Cube." San Francisco is 1 of 3 cities in which needy people lined up to get the surplus cheese. A cave in Kansas formerly used to store government cheese. [4]. A miner from Colorado named Charles Griffee excavated these caves in the 1880s, but the land was later bought by the Faris family. Like so many things in American public policy, this traces to the New Deal, but actually goes even a little bit before that, says Andrew Novakovi, a professor of Agricultural Economics at Cornell University. MALONE: Karen's doing the dance. These days, units are available for business leasing or to store items that would benefit from the particular climate control found underground. Food Caves in Missouri SubTropolis, Kansas City. Original reels of Hollywood blockbusters "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" are stored in the caves. What would the government do if you drove this into downtown Washington and said, here you go? Sprawling beneath 31st Street (and beyond) for more than two million square feet, the nations first subterranean business park was blasted into existence by prolific businessmen Lester Dean Sr. and Lester Dean Jr. We say blasted because in 1973, the duo expanded an existing mine on the property using what else? Besides those already mentioned, other businesses include Cerner, NextPage, Hallmark Cards, Hantover, Clore Automotive, and Knapheide. So just wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling CALLAHAN: Floor-to-ceiling - and then as you kept filling it, you just worked your way right back out. Hunt's extensive business dealings in Clay County contributed to the Chiefs having their NFL Training Camp at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri until 1991. The young people do - they say, well, I can't go out with a girl or I can't go out with a guy because I'm on the road all the time. And welcome to PLANET MONEY. Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month. There are so many incredible abandoned businesses in Missouri. According to the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the space was once also a limestone mine. CALLAHAN: So it'd be all the way to the ceiling. Andy Novakovic spent his summers as a kid working on his grandparents' dairy farm in Wisconsin. And the Ronald Reagan team was stuck dealing with these caves full of cheese. Lawmakers worried that any blow to the nations dairy farmers could lead to drastic shortages down the line. Kenny Malone hails from Meadville, PA where the zipper was invented, where Clark Gables mother is buried and where, in 2007, a wrecking ball broke free from a construction site, rolled down North Main Street and somehow wound up inside the trunk of a Ford Taurus sitting at a red light. ASCHEBROCK: Well, I think cheese eating is better than dating sometimes. It was a big enough number that it sounded like one of these campaign promises that you really didn't expect they would actually fulfill. As strange as this predicament might seem, the U.S. is far from the only country to artificially stabilize agricultural prices by stockpiling food products. NOVAKOVIC: Well, I think there's two basic lessons. MALONE: Now, to be fair, that's probably not enough to start filling caves again. ASCHEBROCK: I'm not running down Velveeta, but I'll tell you, the government processed loaf was 10 times - 100 times better. ASCHEBROCK: Now, I'm not sure if you know - if you've ever seen a 500-pound steel barrel of cheese. It was built by a German immigrant named John Georgian, who instead of relying on those trusty limestone caves weve come to know and love dug out his own brewery space beneath Weston. Probably the cheapest and most practical thing would be to dump it in the ocean., Instead, they decided to jettison 30 million pounds of it into welfare programs and school lunches through the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program. Gastro Obscura covers the worlds most wondrous food and drink. PHIL HARTMAN: (As character) Matt, we're ready for you. G. DEP: (Rapping) Can't buy trees with government cheese. Try the frozen treat that inspired Arrested Development's famous banana stand. But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. The USDA helped "cut the glut" then by purchasing $20 million worth of fresh cheese. ASCHEBROCK: Nope. MALONE: The Trump administration announced that in order to help farmers being hurt by Trump's tariffs, the government may be making some food purchases again. Get more stories delivered right to your email. I mean, we had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. MALONE: Again, our dairy economist Andy Novakovic. DUFFIN: It is this moment that government cheese truly enters the American bloodstream. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! A teeny bit was allowed but not too much. There is a. Starting around the 1950s, investors started finding ways to use the abandoned underground space. Long situated in a warehouse-style facility far from the major business district of Kansas . You'll receive your first newsletter soon! We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. The block earned its name due to the number of saloons found between the Kansas-Missouri state line and Genessee Street at the turn of the century. Fortunately, the rock here is soft enough to scratch something out without a lot of effort. With the onset of wartime rationing and shortages leading into the Second World War, there were growing fears about the long-term stability of the United States food supply. China props up pork prices by buying surplus for its frozen pork reserve. MALONE: One of the ways Carter proposed giving farmers an equal break was to raise the price of milk by about 6 cents per gallon, which was kind of a lot at the time. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. MALONE: That did some good. The four are Onondaga Cave and Cathedral Cave at Onondaga Cave State Park, Fisher Cave at Meramec State Park , and Ozark Caverns at Lake of the Ozarks State Park. Add 16 oz of macaroni, or shells to the pressure cooker and enough water to cover the noodles completely. Last year, the U.S. produced nearly 12 billion pounds of cheese -- an all-time high, according to the USDA. MALONE: The idea was that if you give this food to people who suffer from food insecurity, then maybe it is going to go to somebody who wasn't going to buy cheese anyway so you're not hurting the market as much. It was created by digging into the Bethany Falls limestone mine and is, in places, 160 feet beneath the surface. NOVAKOVIC: The federal government wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do with tanker loads of milk. Weve written about the 8th Street Tunnel before, and who can blame us? In fact, it has trademarked the phrase "World's Largest Underground Business Complex." As with any commodity, the demand for dairy fluctuates, yet the nature of dairy production makes it challenging to quickly ramp up or down production in response. But remember; the raw ingredients were grade A cheddar cheese, some of it personally certified by Bob Aschebrock. No purchase necessary. MALONE: That is right. The Federal Government stores tons of surplus cheese and other dairy products in the mines. Well, its called SubTropolis, is owned by Hunt Midwest yes, the same Hunt family that owns the Kansas City Chiefs and is wide enough to hold 42 Arrowhead Stadiums. Theres even a train track winding through the colossal complex, and many, many exit signs. And they go to their bosses. Government agents were in uncharted territory. He says the government was buying powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese - only grade-A cheddar, though. Known for its hiking trails (with Missouri River views), wineries and the McCormick distillery, Weston is also home to OMalleys, the oldest bar in Missouri. But the government then actually has to figure out a way to step into this market and make it happen. Hogwarts, who? It's going up because the government MALONE: And do you - you hear of it. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. You may wonder why the government has a massive cheese stockpile. KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. To the cheese cave. I can tell you what we had to reject it for - flat, bitter, yeasty, malty, old milk, fruity MALONE: That sounds lovely. MALONE: The government cheese caves started to empty out. The net result of that was overcompensating in using this program to help out farmers, to the point where we wound up creating the most massive dairy surplus in U.S. history.. As a Louisiana foodie, all I know about the topic is that if anyone got t heir hands on government cheese, it was a celebration, because it was so tasty.!! We are @planetmoney. He's been working here since the 1970s, since the cheese debacle. A set of caves along Interstate 435 offered a convenient cold-storage option. By 1984, the U.S. storage facilities contained 1.2 billion pounds, or roughly five pounds of cheese for every American. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) A mother is in custody after her two children were found barefoot, dirty, and living in a wooden shipping crate in an underground cave part of a massive subterranean network carved out beneath Kansas City. Well, we got some real crafty guys that started putting 40-pound blocks of special cheese right under the bunghole. You need a hacksaw. Anyway, whats weird is that Peters talks about working beneath Park University in a limestone cave. Have you been inside? NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. Leilas Hair Museum, located in Independence, is one of the most unusual places in Missouri. We've got 60 million of these that the government owns with mold. In 1949, the Agricultural Act first gave the Commodity Credit Corporation, a government-owned agency created to stabilize farm incomes, authority to purchase dairy products. That is, until last month. MALONE: And so our country has a tradition of programs to help farmers. It can fit a train car. Farmers also used it to improve soil. MALONE: So a campaign promise - that's what we call those. Today, the National Archives has four underground facilities. Over the course of the decade, inflation in the U.S. skyrocketed from 5.5 percent up to 14 percent. A cave (also known as a cavern) is a common terrain feature that generates in the Overworld and the Nether. The government would buy as much milk as it took to move that price. [3] The National Archives and Records Administration also leases space for a Federal Records Center. And what percentage of economists would you say are able to milk a cow by hand? Jimmy Carter was running for president. The caves were largely abandoned after the city's building boom stopped, Hasan said. And in order to do. In fact, he remembers the exact room it went into. So the thing that the government was concerned about is what's called commercial displacement. Starting in 1995, a government nonprofit has promoted a pro-dairy policy - in direct opposition to the Department of Agriculture and government nutritionists. Born from tragedy, the remote national park is bringing tourism and other changes. Karen's doing the dance. DUFFIN: So much cheese that Bob starts having to spend more and more time on the road because he has to actually go to the cheese to grade it. Let us know. Unlike corn or wheat, however, milk needed to be converted into more shelf-stable forms, specifically butter, dehydrated skim milk powder, and cheese. Through the years, Kansas Citians have utilized a number of buried passageways for transportation, illegal (at the time) or otherwise. So they created a brand-new special program to give the cheese away through food banks. Unfortunately, your shopping bag is empty. This story was first published in KCUR's Creative Adventure newsletter. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: The great cheese giveaway began today in California. 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In the 1990s and early 2000s, even as U.S. nutritionists expressed growing concern about saturated fats and rising obesity levels, a marketing firm created and partially funded by the USDA gave millions to fast-food companies such as Taco Bell and Dominos to push them to increase the amount of cheese on menu items by as much as eightfold.