(SOUNDBITE OF FREDERIC AUGER'S "SUNBURN"). 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. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. We've got 60 million of these that the government owns with mold. San Francisco is one of three cities in which needy people lined up to get the surplus cheese. Currently 5,000,000 square feet is occupied and 10,000,000 square feet are "improved.". 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. 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 . In fact, he remembers the exact room it went into. MALONE: Bob Aschebrock spent 30 years as a USDA cheese inspector. DUFFIN: Hello. Starting in 1995, a government nonprofit has promoted a pro-dairy policy - in direct opposition to the Department of Agriculture and government nutritionists. SNOOP DOGG: You don't buy it. Limestone caves in the Kansas City area have been used to store immigration records for years. Before that, he was a reporter for Miami's WLRN. He's been working here since the 1970s, since the cheese debacle. And then on the other side, the government tried to replace some of their artificial demand for milk with new real demand for milk. I get in my car in my garage at home and drive underground here, so its all temperature controlled. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has the largest domestic reserve of cheese of all varieties, including cheddar, Swiss and American . Grab a latte at the birthplace of modern American skateboarding. DUFFIN: But maybe government cheese's most surreal moment came on a television show where Martha Stewart cooks stuff with Snoop Dog. 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. BOB ASCHEBROCK: Yes. According to the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the space was once also a limestone mine. 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. 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. 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. And the Ronald Reagan team was stuck dealing with these caves full of cheese. I was hired as a cheese grader. Expand All. But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. DUFFIN: You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook - also @planetmoney. You took away my customers. 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'm Karen Duffin. 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. 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. Other facilities like SubTropolis exist although not on the same scale, such as the abandoned mine in Butler, Pennsylvania used by Corbis and the US Federal Government for secure storage. Its oddly fascinating! Since that requires capital, the dairy industry starts consolidating, says Andrea Wiley, author of Re-Imagining Milk. 1 flavor defect he had to look out for was acidity. And do you, like, smack your forehead? 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. Are there any fascinating abandoned buildings in Missouri? MALONE: As the government bought more and more cheese, sure, the price of milk went up. Turns out, cave living is naturally energy efficient. MALONE: Dan says that the cheese took up about half an acre of space. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. Missouri has more than 7,000 caves under its ground, though fewer than 20 are easily accessible to most people. does st martin parish have school tomorrow. 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: For a lot of people who grew up in the 1970s and '80s, you cannot overstate how influential government cheese became. But the government then actually has to figure out a way to step into this market and make it happen. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: The retail price of milk is going up more than 6 cents a gallon - soon. And you turn it, and you pull out a core of cheese. But that does not mean the government had fixed the problem. Besides those already mentioned, other businesses include Cerner, NextPage, Hallmark Cards, Hantover, Clore Automotive, and Knapheide. That's because it maintains the proper humidity that cheese needs to ripen to peak flavor and texture, just like a real cheese cave. If the girl's MALONE: Government cheese also shows up in tons of songs. It's going up because the government MALONE: And do you - you hear of it. The government eventually tired of being involved in this . Throw two tbps of butter into a pressure cooker and melt them. Love Missouri? We're highlighting some of the wonders inside. I mean, there was all kinds of tricks that you - that we had to be looking for. In fact, it has trademarked the phrase Worlds Largest Underground Business Complex. It was developed by late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt via Hunt Midwest Real Estate Development, Inc. Read on to learn more about the largest underground business complex in Missouri. Government buys more cheese. The Giant Animal Cluster, located in Bonne Terre is another wacky attraction in Missouri. Starting around the 1950s, investors started finding ways to use the abandoned underground space. 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. Youve heard about the subterranean chamber beneath the land near Worlds of Fun, right? When maple syrup supplies run low, Canada taps into its strategic reserve. A miner from Colorado named Charles Griffee excavated these caves in the 1880s, but the land was later bought by the Faris family. KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. A set of caves along Interstate 435 offered a convenient cold-storage option. I started in 1967 with the USDA, and I was hired as a cheese grader. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The great cheese giveaway began today in California. DUFFIN: And if you're a cheese seller and you hear this - that someone is going to buy your cheese at this high price - you're like, well, I'm going to sell them my crappiest cheese at that price. Like, this is the original bridge to nowhere. Though its more a part of Midtown than Downtown, the space once known as Deans Downtown Underground is definitely down there. 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 second lesson is you got to pay attention to the unintended consequences because they can come back and bite you and bite you hard. Today, the National Archives has four underground facilities. Make sure to come up for fresh air, as well as bangers and mash. 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. You may wonder why the government has a massive cheese stockpile. But milk doesn't store well, so the government bought other dairy products. 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. According to USDA statistics, the average American eats 34.1 pounds of cheese every year and is projected to eat 36.5 pounds by 2024. KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: The year was 1977. Original reels of Hollywood blockbusters "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" are stored in the caves. Kraft Foods, the multinational conglomerate that makes countless grocery products in addition to cheese, is about none of that, however. The idea of "government cheese" is an enduring blip in the American psyche. A NASA employee needing an area to test sensitive navigational instruments was among the first official cave occupants. See. Fortunately, the rock here is soft enough to scratch something out without a lot of effort. It also could have tried to send it overseas as foreign aid, like we do with other surplus commodities. MALONE: You can see pictures of the cheese cave. It has a grid of 16 feet high, 40 foot wide tunnels separated by 25 foot square limestone pillars created by the room and pillar method of hard rock mining. . It's deteriorating. Onandaga Cave is one of the most gorgeous underground places in Missouri. A slice of Kraft cheese is going to be less about. ASCHEBROCK: There is a bung - what they call a bunghole up on the top. Working underground is no big deal to me, Peters says in the interview. MALONE: And you can taste all of those things in a piece of cheese? To learn more about the best caves in Missouri, read our article here. Cheeseproclub.com. MALONE: Right. But here is why government cheese has become a kind of parable of how government intervention in markets can have this, like, butterfly effect. [2], The mine naturally maintains temperatures between 65 and 70F (18 and 21C) year-round. MALONE: Right - very, very expensive cheese. By 1984, the U.S. storage facilities contained 1.2 billion pounds, or roughly five pounds of cheese for every American. Try the frozen treat that inspired Arrested Development's famous banana stand. DUFFIN: Nevertheless, when Carter got elected, he goes all in. The best hidden gems and little known destinations - straight to your inbox. Uncover the finest, most undercover experiences in Kansas City. What is cave cheese? 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. While the popular cheese has changed a lot since then, from access limited to royalty in 1625 to the confinement of "government cheddar" during World War II, the caves are constant . Sign up for notifications from Insider! SUBSCRIBE for Every Delicious Theory! MALONE: Again, economist Andy Novakovic. This will be about 3/4 to a cup of water. And it's the most government packaging you will ever see - just, like, brown cardboard, some black USDA stamps on it. And before that, he was a reporter for his friend T.C. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. Lets just call it tunnel vision. 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. Looking for more unusual places in Missouri? Ashley Day. The government was demanding an unnatural amount of milk and so farmers were supplying an unnatural amount of milk. Its existence serves as a reminder of Kansas Citys knack for innovative transportation especially as new railways for the streetcar go down all along Main Street. 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. NOVAKOVIC: You've got two levers you can pull on. The cheese was processed and made into 2 and 5 pound bricks and given away as food aid to the poor of America. 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. The third cave is much smaller and contains a natural spring that often sends clean water running over the ground. As the room and pillar mining method is used to extract limestone throughout the Midwest, many companies are looking at ways to utilize the hundreds of millions of square feet created in this manner for everything from mushroom farming to crude oil stockpiling. NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. Hogwarts, who? 2023 Atlas Obscura. 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. NOVAKOVIC: To persuade farmers to produce less. 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. 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? 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. An eye-opening journey through the history, culture, and places of the culinary world. NOVAKOVIC: You can imagine the cheese company that's in the business of selling cheese is going to say, hey, what's the deal here? They also house a massive frozen-food storage complex, a paintball business, and a US Postal Service facility that stores and distributes new stamps. I dont even need a coat in the winter.. MALONE: And so our country has a tradition of programs to help farmers. The underground industrial park known as SubTroplis opened for business in 1964 in an excavated mine below Kansas City, Mo., attracting tenants with the lure of lower energy costs and cheap rents . Youll want to check out this cool hiking trail that has another cave youre welcome to explore. We are not a government facility, but rather a multi-generational family business . SNOOP DOGG: (Rapping) And we ghetto like a [expletive] hot buttered toast in the mornin' with some government cheese. 1 By Kimberlee N. Ried Enlarge Plan for the National Archives at Kansas City. DUFFIN: It was 1976. Oh, boy - here we go. 's homemade newspaper, Neighborhood News. Kansas City, MO 64112. But thats not all that was uncovered. Lever 2, more demand - you could try to convince the public that they want to drink more milk. Like, are you the most picky cheese-eater in your group of friends? Roanoke Cave . This story was first published in KCUR's Creative Adventure newsletter. Like anything you grow up with and then lose subsequently access to, government cheese is parked in a prominent spot in the memories of its former consumers. MALONE: This must be a common confusion in the industry. Stay up to date with what you want to know. Metallic, sour, whey taint, weedy, onion, barny, lipase and sulfide. This one-of-a-kind display showcases a wide variety of hair art, historic hair pieces, and more. And so they pass a law saying that they want the price of milk to go up automatically every six months. There are literally train tracks leading into it. 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. NOVAKOVIC: But 99.9 percent wouldn't have the foggiest clue how to get started. The caves were largely abandoned after the city's building boom stopped, Hasan said. 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.!! SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. (Shouting) Government cheese. 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. [4]. Last year, the U.S. produced nearly 12 billion pounds of cheese -- an all-time high, according to the USDA. The Campground recently unearthed pieces of the distillerys tile floor as they were renovating their own bar. Lemp Brewery, located in St. Louis, is another unique place to explore. Heap the flour on your countertop and make a well in the center. U.S. skyrocketed from 5.5 percent up to 14 percent, Im giving dairy farmers an equal break., boost cheese sales by more than 30 million pounds, 43 million gallons of milk down the drain, $20 million worth of cheese to cut the glut, 1.4 billion pounds of cheese in cold storage, currently has 7 million pounds of raw product, Sign up for our email, delivered twice a week. DAN CALLAHAN: No, I've never thought about it. And there are 17 flavor defects that could happen in cheddar cheese. 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. 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? MALONE: So if you wanted to sell cheese to the government, Bob would show up with this, like, hollow rod called a cheese trier. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. How do we - how do we get this cat out of the tree? Each week, KCUR's Adventure! There were 40-pound blocks and 500-pound barrels. He says the government was buying powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese - only grade-A cheddar, though. Have you seen these caves before? I wonder how old some of these marks are? In 1976, Jimmy Carter got on a stage and said something seemingly innocuous. Oh, yeah. DUFFIN: More graders grading more cheese that the government then buys. NOVAKOVIC: The federal government wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do with tanker loads of milk. In addition to serving as a records center, Lenexa has two archival cold storage rooms. ANDY NOVAKOVIC: Oh, yeah. MALONE: The government cheese caves started to empty out. 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. So they created a brand-new special program to give the cheese away through food banks. However, when Prohibition was enacted in 1919 via the 18th Amendment, the alcohol purveyor shut its doors. And you can drive your car right into it. DUFFIN: By the early 1980s, the dairy support program was costing taxpayers around $2 billion a year. Visit a sweet shop selling one of the first candies ever made and sold in America. 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. DUFFIN: This is a basic supply-and-demand problem. Through the years, Kansas Citians have utilized a number of buried passageways for transportation, illegal (at the time) or otherwise. government cheese caves kansas city. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. 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. It can fit a train car. And Andy had a ringside seat to it. You wont be bored on this one-of-a-kind road trip! You may even encounter some paranormal activity while youre exploring. NOVAKOVIC: (Laughter) Well, that was the unintended consequence that was fun, but the bite came in terms of how much it cost for that opportunity. DUFFIN: Our supervising producer is Alex Goldmark, and our editor is Bryant Urstadt. And though OMalleys looks normal from the outside, the inside tells another story. There is currently about $85 million earmarked to buy dairy and distribute it to places like schools and food banks. We walk inside. 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. NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. Lamar Hunt, the late founder of the Kansas City Chiefs, is perhaps the most well-known of the cave developers. 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: In the pantheon of milk-related economic disasters, there is one that rises above the rest. And in order to do this, they have to be willing to buy all of the cheese that anybody wants to sell them at this price. The National Archives' Central Plains regional archives is moving into the heart of Kansas City's cultural and historic area. ANDY NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. The 43,000,000 square feet structure is owned by Americold and is primarily used for food production. +44 (0)7540 787812 frances@constructionandbuildingphotography.com. Layer by Layer: A Mexico City Culinary Adventure, Sacred Granaries, Kasbahs and Feasts in Morocco, Monster of the Month: The Hopkinsville Goblins, Writing the Food Memoir: A Workshop With Gina Rae La Cerva, Reading the Urban Landscape With Annie Novak, How to Grow a Dye Garden With Aaron Sanders Head, Making Scents: Experimental Perfumery With Saskia Wilson-Brown, Indigenous Desserts of Turtle Island With Mariah Gladstone, University of Massachusetts Entomology Collection, The Frozen Banana Stands of Balboa Island, The Paratethys Sea Was the Largest Lake in Earths History, How Communities Are Uncovering Untold Black Histories, The Medieval Thieves Who Used Cats, Apes, and Turtles as Accomplices, THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE MAY 21, 2022, EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURAS FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. MALONE: One part of the solution then was to gently get that milk supply down. It was created by digging into the Bethany Falls limestone mine and is, in places, 160 feet beneath the surface. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. MALONE: Even if that bite just looks like some delicious cheese? JOHN BLOCK: You see that cake of cheese? History is a mystery. You've got to be on they special mailing list. glimpse into the void but a modern-day viewing is near-impossible. President Jimmy Carter wanted to help the dairy farmers. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MARTHA AND SNOOP'S POTLUCK DINNER PARTY"). ", (SOUNDBITE OF NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK SONG, "YOU GOT IT (THE RIGHT STUFF)"). MALONE: By this point, Jimmy Carter was out of office. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. Theres evidence the second story was a ballroom, complete with a stage, dumbwaiter and box office window. 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. The brick structure 9th & State calls home is one of a few left standing since those raucous Paris of the Plains days. 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). Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. MALONE: I'm Kenny Malone. Many companies are looking at ways to utilize the hundreds of millions of square feet created in this manner for everything from mushroom farming to crude oil stockpiling. I mean, we had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE MAY 21, 2022, EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURAS FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri. The Rieger family went into banking and the West Bottoms distillery was paved over. But there is a chance that the government may be in the business of government cheese again. NOVAKOVIC: So the way this program works, literally, is the federal government puts out a piece of paper that says, we will buy as much cheese, butter or nonfat dry milk as you want to sell to us at these prices. You don't want that? The two larger caves were used by the Faris family as a spring house, generator room and, a schoolhouse as well. The New York Times declared that the bill would give poor Americans a slice of the cheese surplus.. ASCHEBROCK: Nope. DUFFIN: But cheese just doesn't travel well. The Cheese Grotto isn't just about cheese storageit also allows you to age cheese at home. DUFFIN: But the problem, Andy says, was that a lot of this was not easy-to-give-away cheese. Cheese-makers buy more milk. 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. Which makes for a thriving underground business community, as unnerving as a giant hole in the side of a bluff may be. And it is also very cold - good for the government cheese, though. 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. Why Did the U.S. Government Amass More Than a Billion Pounds of Cheese?

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