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Thank you! MALONE: Government cheese became a symbol of a crappy government handout. You cansign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday. As a busy mother of one crazy kid, two cats, and two geckos, they write whenever there is spare time. DUFFIN: This is a basic supply-and-demand problem. Emily Standlee is a freelance writer at KCUR and a national award-winning essayist. This one-of-a-kind display showcases a wide variety of hair art, historic hair pieces, and more. DUFFIN: But cheese just doesn't travel well. There are literally train tracks leading into it. That is, until last month. The Trump administration says today it will make an estimated $12 billion in government assistance available. NOVAKOVIC: Well, probably, you know, close to a hundred percent are able. There's also a trail leading to the top of the area above the caves if you want to keep going! Well, we got some real crafty guys that started putting 40-pound blocks of special cheese right under the bunghole. allegiant flights from sioux falls to mesa az; missouri cheese caves wikipedia. Although there are around 1.4 billion pounds of excess cheese in the form of large wheels kept in cold storage limestone caves hundreds of feet below the ground outside of Springfield, Missouri just off Interstate 435, it is not all controlled by the government (only about 300 million pounds). 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. Currently 5,000,000 square feet is occupied and 10,000,000 square feet are "improved.". That number, though, pales in. Even the beverage distributors, they had cheese in the storage. Throw two tbps of butter into a pressure cooker and melt them. Its first FRC opened in 1997 beneath Lee's Summit, and another opened in 2003 under Lenexa. Developed by late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt via Hunt Midwest Real Estate Development, Inc., it has trademarked the phrase World's Largest Underground Business Complex. 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. DUFFIN: By the early 1980s, the dairy support program was costing taxpayers around $2 billion a year. And it took a few years, but a flood of cheese starts to come in. NOVAKOVIC: To persuade farmers to produce less. MALONE: Within five years, the government was storing two pounds of cheese for every single American citizen. San Francisco is 1 of 3 cities in which needy people lined up to get the surplus cheese. Government cheese arrived at our home in enormous uncut yellow blocks wrapped in white nondescript cardboard. But that does not mean the government had fixed the problem. You wont be bored on this one-of-a-kind road trip! government cheese caves kansas citysr latch using nor gate truth table. The 43,000,000 square feet structure is owned by Americold and is primarily used for food production. I am currently about 35 feet underground in an old converted limestone mine that is the size of 120 football fields. How do we - how do we get this cat out of the tree? Ashley Day. A cave in Kansas formerly used to store government cheese. MALONE: The government of the United States of America had caves full of cheddar cheese. Visit a sweet shop selling one of the first candies ever made and sold in America. Posted on June 8, 2022 ; in pete davidson first snl episode; by This is, you know, important to me. MALONE: (Laughter) And you just have a big knife. You can do something to make demand greater, or you can do something to make supply less. NOVAKOVIC: We took a small amount of money from every dairy farmer, collected on every pound of milk they sold, and we created the National Dairy Board. And so they try to hire more cheese graders. You took away my customers. ASCHEBROCK: I'm not running down Velveeta, but I'll tell you, the government processed loaf was 10 times - 100 times better. NOVAKOVIC: It's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. 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. 's homemade newspaper, Neighborhood News. MALONE: Releasing a tsunami of surplus cheddar the wrong way would push the price of cheese and milk way down. 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. A teeny bit was allowed but not too much. This little-known cave area in Kansas is the perfect opportunity to explore something that many Kansans might not have heard of before. DUFFIN: But that does not work for milk because milk starts going bad the minute it comes out of the cow. MALONE: Today's episode was produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, Nick Fountain and Rhaina Cohen. 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. Get more stories delivered right to your email. So these days, if the government wants to help farmers, what you'll generally hear about are direct subsidies as opposed to buying cheese. Home; About; Gallery; Blog; Shop; Contact; My Account; Resources DUFFIN: Like, hey, people of America, wouldn't you like to drink more milk? Metallic, sour, whey taint, weedy, onion, barny, lipase and sulfide. India and Bhutan's yak herders face steep challenges. The New York Times declared that the bill would give poor Americans a slice of the cheese surplus.. 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. Through our sister company, Cold Zone, we are able to store refrigerated food, such as cheese for our tenants. So how in the world did the U.S. end up with a mountain of slowly molding cheese? is cottonseed oil safe for nut allergy 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. [2], The mine naturally maintains temperatures between 65 and 70F (18 and 21C) year-round. Beneath the bar, theres a hollow place in the wall that looks to have been covered up. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! 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? This was generally the approach that we would use to support other kinds of farm industries. DUFFIN: You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook - also @planetmoney. And he says getting rid of caves full of grade-A government cheese was an economically tricky issue. You don't do that, huh? Get more stories delivered right to your email. Over the years, the industry has found all sorts of ways to get rid of its excess supplysome more insidious than others. 41, no. dynamite. The Country Club Plaza. 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. The 55,000,000-square-foot, 1,100-acre underground storage facility is believed to be the world's largest site of its kind. However, as the room and pillar mining method continues to be used to extract limestone throughout the Midwest, growth of such facilities is quite possible. The former limestone mines house about 400 businesses, many of which specialize in storage or warehousing because they are protected from extreme weather and can boast stable, year-round temperatures and humidity. Visitors to the underworld will even find a whiskey distillery within the mined area, which stretches for more than 1 million square feet. MALONE: Again, our dairy economist Andy Novakovic. In the 1940s, there was a real concern that we were going to have a hard time keeping up with providing the necessities of life, Novakovi says. newsletter brings you a new way to explore the Kansas City region. MALONE: There will be a cave in Kansas City, a van down by the river and a touching exchange between Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. I dont even need a coat in the winter.. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus milk and turning it into processed commodity cheesehad backfired, hard. And the United States Postal Service's Philatelic Sales Divison, the national distribution center for . I get in my car in my garage at home and drive underground here, so its all temperature controlled. Share your experiences in the comment section below. The air is cool and the barroom massive almost cathedral-like. NOVAKOVIC: It was pretty hard to predict that it would get as bad as it got. "If they haven't been used, no one knows what state of deterioration they are in," Hasan said. SubTropolis is used by around 50 businesses and organizations, for a variety of purposes. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Cheese-makers buy more milk. AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: The White House is coming to the aid of farmers hurt by its own hard-line trade policies. MALONE: Now, to be fair, that's probably not enough to start filling caves again. Kraft Foods, the multinational conglomerate that makes countless grocery products in addition to cheese, is about none of that, however. His creation, SubTropolis, is the largest of the underground facilities with nearly 6 million square feet of industrial space for lease. This little-known cave area in Kansas is the perfect opportunity to explore something that many Kansan's might not have heard of before. Its more than a hobby, its a passion.. NOVAKOVIC: (Laughter) That was the unintended consequence that was fun. 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. 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. Out of 25 buildings, a whopping 24 were saloons. MALONE: When we have a surplus of grain or soy or even powdered milk, we can send that stuff overseas as part of foreign aid. (SOUNDBITE OF FREDERIC AUGER'S "SUNBURN"). 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. 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. 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. MALONE: So a campaign promise - that's what we call those. When the Trump administration decided to pay subsidies to farmers hurt by trade, it reminded NPR's Planet Money podcast team about the time another president tried to help farmers. By 1984, the U.S. storage facilities contained 1.2 billion pounds, or roughly five pounds of cheese for every American. 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. Have you seen these caves before? 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. NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. I'm Karen Duffin. I started in 1967 with the USDA, and I was hired as a cheese grader. Kansas City, MO 64112. To get some of that cheese off the market, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has spent $47.1 million buying up roughly 22. NOVAKOVIC: So it's fundamental economics. 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.. About 3.2 acres of available space are added each year as active mining continues. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider You need a hacksaw. Thank you! There is currently about $85 million earmarked to buy dairy and distribute it to places like schools and food banks. 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. I mean, we had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. 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. You may even encounter some paranormal activity while youre exploring. Anyway, whats weird is that Peters talks about working beneath Park University in a limestone cave. ASCHEBROCK: Now, I'm not sure if you know - if you've ever seen a 500-pound steel barrel of cheese. Cheese-makers buy more milk. It was created by digging into the Bethany Falls limestone mine and is, in places, 160 feet beneath the surface. Today, the National Archives has four underground facilities. What are the most unusual places in Missouri? MALONE: The theory was that if you give cheese away to people who can't afford it, then you're not stealing business from real cheese sellers. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. +44 (0)7540 787812 [email protected]. But remember; the raw ingredients were grade A cheddar cheese, some of it personally certified by Bob Aschebrock. 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? Working underground is no big deal to me, Peters says in the interview. Born from tragedy, the remote national park is bringing tourism and other changes. Onandaga Cave is one of the most gorgeous underground places in Missouri. MALONE: The government cheese caves started to empty out. It doesn't take long to see the three caves, but once you're here, you'll spend a long time looking and exploring. MALONE: Dan says that the cheese took up about half an acre of space. This restaurant serves wood-fired fare served in a natural cave with a live spring. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. Each year, several foot races are run in the cave system. 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 . 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 . 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. The guaranteed milk price, which had been going up automatically every six months, was eventually frozen. He says the government was buying powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese - only grade-A cheddar, though. Food Caves in Missouri SubTropolis, Kansas City. DUFFIN: OK. In the 2000s, you could still take an official tour and potentially find a way in for a D.I.Y. ASCHEBROCK: I traveled 39 states, and I was gone as long as 10 weeks at a time doing that. The mine naturally maintains temperatures between 65 and 70 F year-round, making it a great space for a lot of different types of businesses. Yeah. Fortunately, the rock here is soft enough to scratch something out without a lot of effort. Add 16 oz of macaroni, or shells to the pressure cooker and enough water to cover the noodles completely. In 1887, J. Rieger & Co. distillers of top-notch whiskey, vodka and gin put down roots in the Livestock Exchange district of West Bottoms. 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. Expand All. The program is meant to "purchase Mozzarella, Process and Natural American Cheddar Cheese for the National School Lunch Program and other Federal food nutrition assistance programs." 1 flavor defect he had to look out for was acidity. Family-run for more than a century, this pizzeria makes a unique mustard pie. 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. We literally paid them money to stop producing milk. No, it isn't money but actually cheese, 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact, stored in a cave in Missouri. 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. Makes sense, considering the natural limestone ledge bordering the river. 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. ASCHEBROCK: It was 10 times better than - I hate - you know, Velveeta is OK. And Congress is like wait - no, we also love the farmers. JAY-Z: (Rapping) After that government cheese, we eatin' steak. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. DUFFIN: So the basic question was, what kinds of milk products can the government buy and store? They are open spaces of various sizes and shapes that often intersect with each another or with different generated structures, creating vast cave systems. Today on the show, the story of what happened when the president of the United States decided he was going to help America's farmers by buying milk, lots of milk. And in order to do. ANDY NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. And do you, like, smack your forehead? MALONE: Right. There is a. Born and raised Kansan, Clarisa has lived in both tiny towns and cities during their time here in the Sunflower State. It is huge. NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. 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.. That was pretty good. 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. KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: The year was 1977. But the government then actually has to figure out a way to step into this market and make it happen. So the thing that the government was concerned about is what's called commercial displacement. Cheeseproclub.com. Since 1916, when James Lewis Kraft patented American cheese, the U.S. had the technology to create a cheese product that could last for years. 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. ASCHEBROCK: You. That was pretty good. Known as the Springfield Underground, this is a cheese cave of epic proportions covering a . The Cheese Grotto isn't just about cheese storageit also allows you to age cheese at home. Government buys more cheese. Syed E. Hasan, a geosciences professor emeritus at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said the "very pure" limestone was ideal for cement production to shore up the city's rapid expansion at that time. Grab a latte at the birthplace of modern American skateboarding. The 55,000 sq ft underground storage facility is the world's largest underground business complex. The U.S. has too much cheese 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact. And it is also very cold - good for the government cheese, though. Limestone mine in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City, MO, US, Learn how and when to remove this template message, United States Environmental Protection Agency, National Archives and Records Administration, "SubTropolis | Industrial Space for Lease in Kansas City", "Bloomberg.com 2015-02-04 Welcome to Subtropolis The Business Complex Buried Under Kansas City", "Archives.gov 2018-02-26 Kansas City, MO Federal Records Center", SubTropolis Technology Center home site (Hunt Midwest), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SubTropolis&oldid=1140599869, Buildings and structures in Kansas City, Missouri, Articles lacking in-text citations from January 2020, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia cave articles with unreferenced coordinates, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:12. Have you been inside? 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. To do so, however, required a serious upfront investment. DUFFIN: It's one thing for politicians to say, we want the price of milk to go up. Jimmy Carter has announced his plan to help farmers. And though the world may not imagine Kansas City as big in the underground scene our ever-expanding streetcar system still operates where the sun shines the limestone around these parts was shaped by glaciers and rivers and makes for good mining. 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. Heap the flour on your countertop and make a well in the center. Offer available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). Accuracy and availability may vary. 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. DUFFIN: It was 1976. Today, the government still buys and stores cheese for food assistance programs; however, only about 300 . JOHN BLOCK: You see that cake of cheese? It was ready to start buying cheese. MALONE: Yes. The year was 1981, and President Ronald Reagan had a cheese problem. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: A state official estimated 300,000 people will get a taste of today's cheese. MALONE: Bob Aschebrock spent 30 years as a USDA cheese inspector. In 2003 the Archives opened an underground FRC facility in Lenexa, Kansas. The easier solution - maybe - the government could just start buying a ton of milk themselves. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MARTHA & SNOOP'S POTLUCK DINNER PARTY"). The idea of "government cheese" is an enduring blip in the American psyche. Oh, boy - here we go. These are the 13 weirdest places you can possibly go in Missouri. But their purpose has shifted over the years. But cheese doesn't travel well, so the government landed on a third option. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The third cave is much smaller and contains a natural spring that often sends clean water running over the ground. 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. Now heres a story that comes full circle. MALONE: This is one of those slow-moving train wrecks that you can see coming from a mile away. But thats not all that was uncovered. And you turn it, and you pull out a core of cheese. OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. When maple syrup supplies run low, Canada taps into its strategic reserve. And thus, you won't be flooding anyone's market. Well, sort of. 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. There are these massive columns, and it looks like something the "Lord Of The Rings" dwarves built. Lamar Hunt, the late founder of the Kansas City Chiefs, is perhaps the most well-known of the cave developers. How would you like to work underground? Sign up for KCUR's Creative Adventure Email. The government has tended to stay away from buying cheese as a solution. The walls themselves are limestone, of course. 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. And then on the other side, the government tried to replace some of their artificial demand for milk with new real demand for milk. Over in West Bottoms (again), 9th & State operates out of an old Pabst Brewery building on a street once known as the Wettest Block in the World. I wonder how old some of these marks are? NOVAKOVIC: Butter was one, nonfat dry milk and cheese - and in particular, cheddar-type cheese. PublishedSeptember 7, 2018 at 7:20 AM CDT. Deep in converted limestone mines, caves kept perfectly at 36 degrees Fahrenheit store stockpiles of government-owned cheese comprising the country's 1.4 billion pounds of surplus cheese. No? MALONE: One part of the solution then was to gently get that milk supply down. The Washington Post reported that the interest and storage costs for all that dairy was costing around $1 million a day. We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. 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. MALONE: That is right. The Dairy Farmers of America, which has been using the facility, known as the Springfield Underground, for more than 30 years, currently has 7 million pounds of raw product.Some of this is normal inventory storage or cheese being aged. 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. Andy Novakovic is a dairy economist at Cornell University. I mean ASCHEBROCK: We had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. Limestone caves in the Kansas City area have been used to store immigration records for years. If you havent spent a day wandering the streets of Weston, Missouri, youre missing out. Just dont forget your pillar number. The Atchison Storage Facility, commonly known as the Atchison Caves is a 2.7 million square foot underground storage facility in a former pillar limestone mine 50 to 150 feet (15 to 46 m) below the ground in the Missouri River bluffs at Atchison, Kansas. MALONE: So to raise the price of milk, the government basically opened up the world's largest cheese shop - you know, and powdered milk and butter, too. MALONE: I'm Kenny Malone. It certainly was on the edge of that. The reason why the dairy industry gets such preferential treatment is its status as this uncontested food in the diet, Wiley says. MALONE: And I'm Kenny Malone. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Humanpodcast. 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. It was - some of it almost taste like natural cheddar. They actually had to rent out space in multiple caves. DUFFIN: This was not just political pandering. With temperatures maintained at 25F and 35F, staff have nicknamed the space the "Ice Cube." You've got to be on they special mailing list. The federal government has been storing paperwork in these caves for nearly 25 years. Its at the same park! DUFFIN: Our supervising producer is Alex Goldmark, and our editor is Bryant Urstadt. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book.