Kraft Cheese Cave, Springfield. Start with this beginner's guide to the neighborhood, Kansas City's new airport terminal carries on the legacy of a 10-year-old who fought for inclusivity, Local public health officials fear a Kansas bill would undercut work to contain diseases, A federal lawsuit against Missouri's 'dysfunctional' SNAP call center has gotten bigger. SNOOP DOGG: (Rapping) And we ghetto like a [expletive] hot buttered toast in the mornin' with some government cheese. Weve written about the 8th Street Tunnel before, and who can blame us? DAN CALLAHAN: No, I've never thought about it. On the north edge of the complex Hunt developed the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement park complex. If youve been in the cheeky, sophisticated Campground bar, youve set foot where the original J. Rieger & Co. building stood. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Roanoke Cave . Anyway, whats weird is that Peters talks about working beneath Park University in a limestone cave. DUFFIN: Government cheese starts to show up in all kinds of popular culture. NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. A cave in Kansas formerly used to store government cheese. The Cheese Grotto isn't just about cheese storageit also allows you to age cheese at home. There's a lot of history buried beneath Kansas City streets, from Prohibition-era passageways and underground caves to the oldest bar in Missouri. Al and Ralph may have influenced food safety labeling and your pizzas cheese. You cansign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. MALONE: Right. 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. NOVAKOVIC: Well, probably, you know, close to a hundred percent are able. Behold the power of cheese. The guaranteed milk price, which had been going up automatically every six months, was eventually frozen. Hogwarts, who? MALONE: The story of government cheese has become a kind of parable of how government intervention in markets can have this, like, butterfly effect. You don't want that? But here is why government cheese has become a kind of parable of how government intervention in markets can have this, like, butterfly effect. KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: The year was 1977. Andy Novakovic spent his summers as a kid working on his grandparents' dairy farm in Wisconsin. What would the government do if you drove this into downtown Washington and said, here you go? There is currently about $85 million earmarked to buy dairy and distribute it to places like schools and food banks. Buoyed by items like Wendys dual Double Melt sandwich concept and Taco Bells steak quesadilla, the organization helped boost cheese sales by more than 30 million pounds. MALONE: Who's got time for dating when you're traveling around eating cheese everywhere? The U.S. has too much cheese 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact. Government . government cheese caves kansas city NOVAKOVIC: (Laughter) That was the unintended consequence that was fun. DAN CALLAHAN: No, I've never thought about it. 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. And before that, he was a reporter for his friend T.C. They actually had to rent out space in multiple caves. Home; About; Gallery; Blog; Shop; Contact; My Account; Resources Blackwell Motors showcases a variety of fiberglass animals, and people come from all around just to see them. We are @planetmoney. The idea of "government cheese" is an enduring blip in the American psyche. DUFFIN: This is a basic supply-and-demand problem. Weve looked and looked at ways to deal with this, but the distribution problems are incredible, a USDA official was quoted as saying. ", (SOUNDBITE OF NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK SONG, "YOU GOT IT (THE RIGHT STUFF)"). The surplus dairy products now in storage have a market value of $3 billion. It was this spectacle of millions of pounds of expensive cheese being processed and given away that created a popular cultural icon and an example of bad government spending. There are these massive columns, and it looks like something the "Lord Of The Rings" dwarves built. MALONE: So it's 1977. CALLAHAN: So it'd be all the way to the ceiling. MALONE: And you can taste all of those things in a piece of cheese? JIMMY CARTER: Now, although I am a farmer, I'm not in favor of guaranteeing farmers a profit. 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 . ASCHEBROCK: Will eat any cheese. And then on the other side, the government tried to replace some of their artificial demand for milk with new real demand for milk. 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. ASCHEBROCK: You. Today, the National Archives has four underground facilities. 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. Yes, the Government Really Does Stash Billions of Pounds of Cheese in Missouri Caves The USDA has kept cheese and other dairy products in cold-storage caves for decades. I mean, we had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. NOVAKOVIC: Well, I think there's two basic lessons. You don't do that, huh? So the government gave a bunch to schools, then to the Army. By: Anne D Springfield and Kansas City are not even near each other, and 435 is no where near Springfield, this article is quite confusing. Try the frozen treat that inspired Arrested Development's famous banana stand. With these historical details in mind, whos to say there isnt a tunnel beneath 9th & State that was used to ferry booze between Missouri and Kansas? According to the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the space was once also a limestone mine. It is huge. DUFFIN: OK. ASCHEBROCK: And that's what you grade. And the resulting demand just pushes the price of milk up. NOVAKOVIC: So you can imagine, you know, you don't just kind of roll down one of these barrels down Seventh Avenue in New York City and say, anybody want some cheese? While the government-owned cheese hoards of the 1970s and 80s are largely a thing of the past, the U.S. has still never really figured out what to do with its excess dairy. (Dean Russell/Here & Now) This article is more than 4 years old. Posted on June 8, 2022 ; in pete davidson first snl episode; by SNOOP DOGG: You don't buy it. But this is what gave us, you know, the got milk and the milk mustache and all those kind of iconic programs that we remember. And while it might take up two stories above the ground, co-owner Heather Hamilton wonders if there are remnants of a tunnel leading out of the basement. Yet part of this cheese mountain represents an enduring surplusa very literal representation of the dairy industrys mismatch with the realties of the market. Original reels of Hollywood blockbusters "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" are stored in the caves. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. 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. It has a grid of 16ft (4.9m) high, 40ft (12m) wide tunnels separated by 25ft (7.6m) square limestone pillars created by the room and pillar method of hard rock mining. There is an argument that our country has to be able to produce its own food because if our farmers go out of business and we become reliant on other countries for food, then that is a kind of national security risk. The Missouri Penitentiary in Jefferson City is rumored to be riddled with spirits. 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? 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. NOVAKOVIC: One is it's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. We are not a government facility, but rather a multi-generational family business . CARTER: But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. Strong Distilling, the only known legal distillery operating in a cave, and catch a "Cave Concert" while you're there. And he started floating this idea. ASCHEBROCK: But then we had the issue with storing the stuff. Like, are you the most picky cheese-eater in your group of friends? HOME; INTERIORS; EXTERIORS; OFFICE & PORTRAITS; PUBLICITY/EVENTS; CONSTRUCTION; INFO 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. Some of the cave openings are so big that a big truck can get through them, while others are so tight that it would be challenging even for an earthworm to sneak through. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has the largest domestic reserve of cheese of all varieties, including cheddar, Swiss and American . You don't do that, huh? DUFFIN: Nevertheless, when Carter got elected, he goes all in. The 55,000,000-square-foot, 1,100-acre underground storage facility is believed to be the world's largest site of its kind. To see the best of them, embark on this road trip to Missouris best abandoned places. A cave (also known as a cavern) is a common terrain feature that generates in the Overworld and the Nether. I get in my car in my garage at home and drive underground here, so its all temperature controlled. There are literally train tracks leading into it. Which makes for a thriving underground business community, as unnerving as a giant hole in the side of a bluff may be. Long situated in a warehouse-style facility far from the major business district of Kansas . Jimmy Carter was running for president. 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. 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. Sign up for KCUR's Creative Adventure Email, Kansas City's new airport terminal carries on the legacy of a 10-year-old who fought for inclusivity, Want to explore Waldo? BOB ASCHEBROCK: Yes. (Shouting) Government cheese. He says the government was buying powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese - only grade-A cheddar, though. MALONE: Karen's doing the dance. Thank you! does st martin parish have school tomorrow. [3] The National Archives and Records Administration also leases space for a Federal Records Center. Cheese Caves Myth: Debunked. And welcome to PLANET MONEY. He spent 30 years testing and tasting cheese for the United States government. DUFFIN: But that does not work for milk because milk starts going bad the minute it comes out of the cow. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. Metallic, sour, whey taint, weedy, onion, barny, lipase and sulfide. Using Kansas City's underground caves to age cheese could be boon to region's cheese makers It still didn't seem right but I went ahead and drove into the cave. About 3.2 acres of available space are added each year as active mining continues. Cheese-makers buy more milk. No purchase necessary. Leilas Hair Museum, located in Independence, is one of the most unusual places in Missouri. This is Dan Callahan. Its oddly fascinating! And Congress is like wait - no, we also love the farmers. Melt Two tbps of butter into a skillet, then add the onion, garlic and mushrooms. And what percentage of economists would you say are able to milk a cow by hand? DUFFIN: More graders grading more cheese that the government then buys. In 1976, Jimmy Carter got on a stage and said something seemingly innocuous. Throw two tbps of butter into a pressure cooker and melt them. Cheeseproclub.com. CALLAHAN: So you'd be - it's 17 feet, 16 feet. Food Caves in Missouri SubTropolis, Kansas City. Its more than a hobby, its a passion.. 7 Awe-Inspiring Drone Views That Will Show Off Kansas Like Never Before, Theres An Incredible Meteor Shower Happening This Summer And Kansas Has A Front Row Seat, The Underrated Natural Wonder Every Kansan Should See At Least Once, The Breathtaking Overlook In Kansas That Lets You See For Miles And Miles, 8 Roads With The Best Windshield Views In All Of Kansas, Theres A Geological Wonder That Youd Never Expect To Find In Kansas, The Beautiful Spot In Kansas Where You Can See Into Three Other States At Once, 9 Amazing Natural Wonders Hiding In Plain Sight In Kansas No Hiking Required, this cool hiking trail that has another cave. Offer subject to change without notice. Karen's doing the dance. MALONE: For a lot of people who grew up in the 1970s and '80s, you cannot overstate how influential government cheese became. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. We can't find a market for it. And it is also very cold - good for the government cheese, though. Missouri's caves can . Its at the same park! SubTroplis is definitely one of the most incredible underground places in Missouri. You can do something to make demand greater, or you can do something to make supply less. 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. The air is cool and the barroom massive almost cathedral-like. [2], The mine naturally maintains temperatures between 65 and 70F (18 and 21C) year-round. Rather, the "caves" are part of a 3.2-million-square-foot warehouse under part of Springfield.. government cheese caves kansas city. AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: The White House is coming to the aid of farmers hurt by its own hard-line trade policies. DUFFIN: (Laughter) That's right. The same year, the USDA bought up $20 million worth of cheese to cut the glut. 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. Steven Rodriquez/Flickr Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri. Starting in 1995, a government nonprofit has promoted a pro-dairy policy - in direct opposition to the Department of Agriculture and government nutritionists. NOVAKOVIC: It was pretty hard to predict that it would get as bad as it got. And he says getting rid of caves full of grade-A government cheese was an economically tricky issue. DUFFIN: It is a case study in what happens when price controls run full speed into the realities of the market. With the economy spiraling, President Jimmy Carter promised to raise the collapsing price of milk, saying, Im giving dairy farmers an equal break., In the late 1970s, when energy prices went crazy and there was this unbelievable period of inflation, things got a little out of control, Novakovi says. DUFFIN: But cheese just doesn't travel well. NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. By Emily Baron Cadloff Global Research, May 30, 2022 Modern Farmer 25 May 2022 Region: USA Theme: Global Economy Either one should get you a higher price. G. DEP: (Rapping) Can't buy trees with government cheese. At one point, the government was storing two pounds of cheese for every single American citizen. MALONE: Dan says that the cheese took up about half an acre of space. MALONE: Right - very, very expensive cheese. Want to explore Waldo? Central Plains Regional Archives Moves to Historic Downtown Location Spring 2009, vol. Government cheese is processed cheese provided to welfare beneficiaries Food Stamp recipients and the elderly receiving Social Security in the United States as well as to food banks. ASCHEBROCK: Well, I think cheese eating is better than dating sometimes. Turns out, cave living is naturally energy efficient. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. I can tell you what we had to reject it for - flat, bitter, yeasty, malty, old milk, fruity MALONE: That sounds lovely. Government buys more cheese. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus milk and turning it into processed commodity cheesehad backfired, hard. I mean, it was really, really good product. A grader, where you do quality checks on it. A large portion is also owned by companies, who . Like, this is the original bridge to nowhere. Family-run for more than a century, this pizzeria makes a unique mustard pie. DUFFIN: Finding a market for this stuff is in fact a pretty fascinating puzzle because getting rid of government surplus anything is an economically tricky thing. Born from tragedy, the remote national park is bringing tourism and other changes. The walls themselves are limestone, of course. MALONE: And then within five years, the government was spending billions of dollars filling caves with cheese that they could not get rid of fast enough. The Giant Animal Cluster, located in Bonne Terre is another wacky attraction in Missouri. And as the historic structure theyd purchased was being repaired, Andy Rieger and crew found an eight-foot high, 400-foot-long tunnel beneath it. BOB ASCHEBROCK: Yes. MALONE: And so our country has a tradition of programs to help farmers. Today, the government still buys and stores cheese for food assistance programs; however, only about 300 . Along with Congress, Carter wanted to raise the price of milk 6 cents per gallon and keep raising it with inflation. Yeah. DUFFIN: It was 1976. However, when Prohibition was enacted in 1919 via the 18th Amendment, the alcohol purveyor shut its doors. That was pretty good. The tunnel was complete, though steep, so a new one was built to weave through it at a lower grade. If you loved visiting this stunning spot, take a trip to Fisher Cave in Meramec State Park. 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. But cheese doesn't travel well, so the government landed on a third option. And they're like, we need more cheese graders. The caves were largely abandoned after the city's building boom stopped, Hasan said. And they go to their bosses. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider The reason why the dairy industry gets such preferential treatment is its status as this uncontested food in the diet, Wiley says. Youll love exploring this amazing geological wonder. Well, sort of. You took away my customers. warehouses in Germany, Belgium, and France. You've got to be on they special mailing list. Government Cheese Over the years, the government has gravitated toward one method of unloading dairy surplus: giving it to the poor. Lawmakers worried that any blow to the nations dairy farmers could lead to drastic shortages down the line. And he tells me, these were never government-owned caves. So the thing that the government was concerned about is what's called commercial displacement. "If they haven't been used, no one knows what state of deterioration they are in," Hasan said. Expand All. 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. The year was 1981, and President Ronald Reagan had a cheese problem. We literally paid them money to stop producing milk. And thus, you won't be flooding anyone's market. In fact, if you see my shape, you would know that I eat enough to keep the tank full. I am currently about 35 feet underground in an old converted limestone mine that is the size of 120 football fields. What is cave 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. KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. ASCHEBROCK: There is a bung - what they call a bunghole up on the top. DUFFIN: This is why there is also a community of people who are still obsessed with government cheese - Internet chat boards trying to find something comparable, restaurants claiming they have a recipe for it. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. It was ready to start buying cheese. Basically the dairy industry is looking to expand its market and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking to expand the agricultural economy and they become very intertwined., It helped that the burgeoning field of nutrition science promoted dairy products as essential for both adults and children. 4701 Wyandotte Street. The government was buying 1 in every 4 pounds of the country's cheddar cheese. And it took a few years, but a flood of cheese starts to come in. DUFFIN: And this is what people will remember as government cheese because when a government starts to give away hundreds of millions of pounds of cheese, people notice. But the government then actually has to figure out a way to step into this market and make it happen. In 1887, J. Rieger & Co. distillers of top-notch whiskey, vodka and gin put down roots in the Livestock Exchange district of West Bottoms. Since that requires capital, the dairy industry starts consolidating, says Andrea Wiley, author of Re-Imagining Milk. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. The Federal Government stores tons of surplus cheese and other dairy products in the mines. The second lesson is you got to pay attention to the unintended consequences because they can come back and bite you and bite you hard. MALONE: Bob Aschebrock was one of the government's cheese graders. DUFFIN: The thing about price controls is that once you start them, they are really, really hard to unwind. Government cheese arrived at our home in enormous uncut yellow blocks wrapped in white nondescript cardboard. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: That's government cheese. Myths surround the cave, as they do with many of Missouri's caverns. 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. The easier solution - maybe - the government could just start buying a ton of milk themselves. ANDY NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. Working underground is no big deal to me, Peters says in the interview. We've got 60 million of these that the government owns with mold. Callahan says it took up about a half an acre of space. Lets just call it tunnel vision. So the thing that the government was concerned about is what's called commercial displacement. To the cheese cave. Andy Novakovic is a dairy economist at Cornell University. In 2016, dairy farmers resorted to simply dumping 43 million gallons of milk down the drain. And you can drive your car right into it. There was an incredible press conference where Agriculture Secretary John Block went before reporters and held up a giant hunk of cheese like it was a national emergency. Go to the shop Go to the shop. OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Springfield Underground, an Erlen Group Company is a commercial industrial park with the advantage of underground storage. It can fit a train car. DUFFIN: But maybe government cheese's most surreal moment came on a television show where Martha Stewart cooks stuff with Snoop Dog. Through our sister company, Cold Zone, we are able to store refrigerated food, such as cheese for our tenants. Visitors to the underworld will even find a whiskey distillery within the mined area, which stretches for more than 1 million square feet. Do you or does someone you know work at SubTropolis? DUFFIN: Just this week, we finally learned some of the details. Starting around the 1950s, investors started finding ways to use the abandoned underground space. Demand for dairy in the U.S. has plummeted 42 percent since 1975, but that hasnt stopped American farmers from producing more and more of it. DUFFIN: Our supervising producer is Alex Goldmark, and our editor is Bryant Urstadt. I was hired as a cheese grader. 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. MALONE: So this leaves a couple of options. What are the most unusual places in Missouri?