All rights reserved. [3] The National Archives and Records Administration also leases space for a Federal Records Center. And the European Union has a long, scandalous history of accumulating butter mountains, wine lakes, and milk lakesthe latter of which consisted of vast quantities of skim milk powder housed in warehouses in Germany, Belgium, and France. [1] The complex contains almost 10.5 miles (16.9km) of illuminated, paved roads and several miles of railroad track. A NASA employee needing an area to test sensitive navigational instruments was among the first official cave occupants. There are literally train tracks leading into it. Offer subject to change without notice. Back in 2018, The New York Times did a profile on Gene Peters, chief executive of Rosnet, a restaurant software company out of Parkville, Missouri. Today, the government still buys and stores cheese for food assistance programs; however, only about 300 . NOVAKOVIC: So it's fundamental economics. MALONE: He and his colleagues are drowning in cheese. DUFFIN: But cheese just doesn't travel well. Visitors to the underworld will even find a whiskey distillery within the mined area, which stretches for more than 1 million square feet. "If they haven't been used, no one knows what state of deterioration they are in," Hasan said. 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. The government was demanding an unnatural amount of milk and so farmers were supplying an unnatural amount of milk. DUFFIN: So the basic question was, what kinds of milk products can the government buy and store? Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Jimmy Carter's campaign promise to help farmers in 1976 not only gave us government cheese but also milk mustaches. 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. 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. 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." DUFFIN: (Laughter) That's right. government cheese caves kansas city We know there are a few places where youre allowed to explore public caves, but theyre sometimes hard to find or access. It is estimated that Kansas has more than 700 and caves, and almost 350 are in the Red Hills. I mean, every warehouse in Wisconsin was full. What are the most unusual places in Missouri? honolulu police department records; spiritual meaning of the name ashley; mississippi election results 2021; charlie spring and nick nelson And do you, like, smack your forehead? Well, sort of. The year was 1981, and President Ronald Reagan had a cheese problem. The 55,000 sq ft underground storage facility is the world's largest underground business complex. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE"). MALONE: Yeah. BOB ASCHEBROCK: Yes. Make sure to come up for fresh air, as well as bangers and mash. 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. Fortunately, the rock here is soft enough to scratch something out without a lot of effort. SubTropolis is used by around 50 businesses and organizations, for a variety of purposes. I dont even need a coat in the winter.. USCIS opened its National Records Center in a cave in Lee's Summit, Missouri, in 1999. A grader, where you do quality checks on it. DUFFIN: And when news gets out that the government is filling a cave with cheese, the press goes nuts because this is exactly what people think of when they think of a government program gone awry. According to the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the space was once also a limestone mine. San Francisco is one of three cities in which needy people lined up to get the surplus cheese. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus milk and turning it into processed commodity cheesehad backfired, hard. Grab a latte at the birthplace of modern American skateboarding. 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. Westons downtown district was established in 1837, so theres a lot of history here. DUFFIN: Government cheese starts to show up in all kinds of popular culture. Even after the demand for dairy declined in the wake of World War II, the program functioned reasonably well for years. The way it melts for a hamburger - there is nothing better. And it's the most government packaging you will ever see - just, like, brown cardboard, some black USDA stamps on it. MALONE: For a lot of people who grew up in the 1970s and '80s, you cannot overstate how influential government cheese became. MALONE: At one point, Donnie Wahlberg of the New Kids On The Block said, quote, "there's nothing like it. The National Archives' Central Plains regional archives is moving into the heart of Kansas City's cultural and historic area. MALONE: This is a cave full of cheese in Kansas City. MALONE: Many listeners may remember "Saturday Night Live's" Matt Foley, as played by Chris Farley, the world's worst motivational speaker. 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. At the time, the distillery offered over a hundred products, which were distributed by mail order across the country. It certainly was on the edge of that. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider Thanks for listening. Springfield Underground, an Erlen Group Company is a commercial industrial park with the advantage of underground storage. Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri. Roanoke Cave . In fact, he remembers the exact room it went into. CALLAHAN: So it'd be all the way to the ceiling. San Francisco is 1 of 3 cities in which needy people lined up to get the surplus cheese. It's also mostly water, so you've got to haul it around in those, like, gas tankers. 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. 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. In 2003 the Archives opened an underground FRC facility in Lenexa, Kansas. 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. 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. This one-of-a-kind display showcases a wide variety of hair art, historic hair pieces, and more. The 55,000,000-square-foot, 1,100-acre underground storage facility is believed to be the world's largest site of its kind. 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. 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? PHIL HARTMAN: (As character) Matt, we're ready for you. And he says the government could not just release a flood of surplus cheese onto the market because it would crush cheese producers. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has the largest domestic reserve of cheese of all varieties, including cheddar, Swiss and American . And what percentage of economists would you say are able to milk a cow by hand? I wonder how old some of these marks are? We're highlighting some of the wonders inside. Many tenants at . 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. SubTroplis is definitely one of the most incredible underground places 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. Youve heard about the subterranean chamber beneath the land near Worlds of Fun, right? You could destroy the surplus, but that looks pretty bad. Starting around the 1950s, investors started finding ways to use the abandoned underground space. MALONE: Dan Callahan worked here in the 1970s and says one day, the U.S. government rented a ton of cave space, and a ton of cheddar cheese started to show up. Heap the flour on your countertop and make a well in the center. And as of March 31, the U.S. still has 1.4 billion pounds of cheese in cold storageonly now its owned by private companies. This restaurant serves wood-fired fare served in a natural cave with a live spring. 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. The USDA helped "cut the glut" then by purchasing $20 million worth of fresh cheese. How would you like to work underground? ASCHEBROCK: Now, I'm not sure if you know - if you've ever seen a 500-pound steel barrel of cheese. 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. The Rieger family went into banking and the West Bottoms distillery was paved over. 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? MALONE: As the government bought more and more cheese, sure, the price of milk went up. Through the years, Kansas Citians have utilized a number of buried passageways for transportation, illegal (at the time) or otherwise. DAN CALLAHAN: No, I've never thought about it. 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. In 2016, dairy farmers resorted to simply dumping 43 million gallons of milk down the drain. Working underground is no big deal to me, Peters says in the interview. In 1949, the Agricultural Act allowed a government agency to buy up dairy products to stabilize prices. NOVAKOVIC: Butter was one, nonfat dry milk and cheese - and in particular, cheddar-type cheese. There's a lot of history buried beneath Kansas City streets, from Prohibition-era passageways and underground caves to the oldest bar in Missouri. Onandaga Cave is one of the most gorgeous underground places in Missouri. 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. That's because it maintains the proper humidity that cheese needs to ripen to peak flavor and texture, just like a real cheese cave. This was generally the approach that we would use to support other kinds of farm industries. As a busy mother of one crazy kid, two cats, and two geckos, they write whenever there is spare time. No? DUFFIN: This is a basic supply-and-demand problem. 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. Caves . NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. Behold the power of cheese. They feature an abundance of ores, as well as hostile mobs that spawn in the darkness. And Andy had a ringside seat to it. You've got to be on they special mailing list. KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. There is a. NOVAKOVIC: (Laughter) That was the unintended consequence that was fun. MALONE: So instead, the cheddar cheese was processed - that helps it keep longer - and then it was repackaged in two and five-pound, like, bricks. They are open spaces of various sizes and shapes that often intersect with each another or with different generated structures, creating vast cave systems. Beneath the bar, theres a hollow place in the wall that looks to have been covered up. Which makes for a thriving underground business community, as unnerving as a giant hole in the side of a bluff may be. Over the years, the industry has found all sorts of ways to get rid of its excess supplysome more insidious than others. ASCHEBROCK: Nope. When Hamilton and partner Sean Smith purchased the property in 2021, they also found a locked safe and penny tile beneath green carpeting. MALONE: So a campaign promise - that's what we call those. In fact, it has trademarked the phrase "World's Largest Underground Business Complex." ASCHEBROCK: There is a bung - what they call a bunghole up on the top. 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 . It's only about a 3-inch-in-diameter hole. Well, we got some real crafty guys that started putting 40-pound blocks of special cheese right under the bunghole. Our operators are standing by. DIRECTIONS: Dissolve the yeast in the hot water and let stand until foamy, about ten minutes. 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. MALONE: So it's 1977. Makes sense, considering the natural limestone ledge bordering the river. Last year, the U.S. produced nearly 12 billion pounds of cheese -- an all-time high, according to the USDA. 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. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: The great cheese giveaway began today in California. The same year, the USDA bought up $20 million worth of cheese to cut the glut. Farmers also used it to improve soil. Have you seen these caves before? Blackwell Motors showcases a variety of fiberglass animals, and people come from all around just to see them. 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. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Humanpodcast. There you go. Pour the dissolved yeast into the well and add enough warm water to make a soft dough. Love Missouri? A native Midwesterner with a love for family, friends, and learning new things. 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. Government cheese arrived at our home in enormous uncut yellow blocks wrapped in white nondescript cardboard. 1. No, it doesnt have to do with the disastrous flooding experienced there in 1903 and 1951. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Rather, the "caves" are part of a 3.2-million-square-foot warehouse under part of Springfield.. DUFFIN: You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook - also @planetmoney. On the north edge of the complex Hunt developed the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement park complex. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. Sign up for our email, delivered twice a week. Kraft Cheese Cave, Springfield. Have you seen these caves before? MALONE: You were hired as someone to show up with a metal thing ASCHEBROCK: Not - no, no, no. Then, in the 1970s, everything started to go haywire. The tunnel was complete, though steep, so a new one was built to weave through it at a lower grade. Have you fallen in love with amateur spelunking? 1 flavor defect he had to look out for was acidity. Lemp Brewery, located in St. Louis, is another unique place to explore. All our area around here - everybody had cheese. The idea of "government cheese" is an enduring blip in the American psyche. It is more than a food that. In the 2000s, you could still take an official tour and potentially find a way in for a D.I.Y. MALONE: Until there was no more room for you to be in this room. 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. 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? The Cheese Grotto isn't just about cheese storageit also allows you to age cheese at home. Food Caves in Missouri SubTropolis, Kansas City. You don't want that? We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. Born and raised Kansan, Clarisa has lived in both tiny towns and cities during their time here in the Sunflower State. A slice of Kraft cheese is going to be less about. This is Dan Callahan. MALONE: This must be a common confusion in the industry. Slice a package of sausages or dice some ham, or both, you do you. And Congress is like wait - no, we also love the farmers. 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. And they're like, we need more cheese graders. But one day, the government rented out a ton of cave space, and then cheddar cheese started to show up, massive blocks of the stuff, pallet after pallet. This little-known cave area in Kansas is the perfect opportunity to explore something that many Kansan's might not have heard of before. ASCHEBROCK: Well, I think cheese eating is better than dating sometimes. DUFFIN: Or you can try to get your surplus goods to people who were not going to buy it anyway. So to prevent this, the government said, look - if we're going to buy your cheese, first, you have to meet with Bob. 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,. But that does not mean the government had fixed the problem. Family-run for more than a century, this pizzeria makes a unique mustard pie. 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: 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. So they created a brand-new special program to give the cheese away through food banks. History is a mystery. Who knows? allegiant flights from sioux falls to mesa az; missouri cheese caves wikipedia. By Emily Baron Cadloff Global Research, May 30, 2022 Modern Farmer 25 May 2022 Region: USA Theme: Global Economy (SOUNDBITE OF DROP ELECTRIC SONG, "WAKING UP TO THE FIRE"). MALONE: Even if that bite just looks like some delicious cheese? DAN CALLAHAN: No, I've never thought about it. NOVAKOVIC: But 99.9 percent wouldn't have the foggiest clue how to get started. DUFFIN: The thing about price controls is that once you start them, they are really, really hard to unwind. 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. The Giant Animal Cluster, located in Bonne Terre is another wacky attraction in Missouri. Uncover the finest, most undercover experiences in Kansas City. I mean, there was all kinds of tricks that you - that we had to be looking for. 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. Want more adventures like this? Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month. I started in 1967 with the USDA, and I was hired as a cheese grader. One of Kansas City's best-loved parks is home to a secret cave No one knows why the cave in Roanoke Park was walled offor why, after decades, it opened last month. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. And so they try to hire more cheese graders. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. 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. That was pretty good. MALONE: Dan says that the cheese took up about half an acre of space. MALONE: Who's got time for dating when you're traveling around eating cheese everywhere? But there is a chance that the government may be in the business of government cheese again. How do we - how do we get this cat out of the tree? Kenny Malone is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Moneypodcast. 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 . NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. NOVAKOVIC: So we have, you know, this immense surplus, and now you have the political problem. 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. warehouses in Germany, Belgium, and France. India and Bhutan's yak herders face steep challenges. NOVAKOVIC: Well, probably, you know, close to a hundred percent are able. 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. MALONE: You can see pictures of the cheese cave. DUFFIN: It was 1976. No, it isn't money but actually cheese, 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact, stored in a cave in Missouri. MALONE: One part of the solution then was to gently get that milk supply down. You don't do that, huh? Thank you! 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. 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. Starting in 1995, a government nonprofit has promoted a pro-dairy policy - in direct opposition to the Department of Agriculture and government nutritionists. 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. 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. DUFFIN: Hello. 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. 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. In second-stage of career life, this former college instructor enjoys contributing to OIYS, blogging, reading, and spending time with her kids. Known as the Springfield Underground, this is a cheese cave of epic proportions covering a . Like SubTropolis, the strangely sterile space is separated by humungous numbered pillars. AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: The White House is coming to the aid of farmers hurt by its own hard-line trade policies. ASCHEBROCK: But then we had the issue with storing the stuff. 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. We hope so. https://bit.ly/2CdCooV Theorists, did you know the government is hiding caves full of cheese from us? That is, until last month. Jimmy Carter was running for president. In 1887, J. Rieger & Co. distillers of top-notch whiskey, vodka and gin put down roots in the Livestock Exchange district of West Bottoms. NOVAKOVIC: You've got two levers you can pull on. The reason why the dairy industry gets such preferential treatment is its status as this uncontested food in the diet, Wiley says. Karen's doing the dance. But the surplus was growing so fast that 30 million pounds barely made a dent. Stay up to date with what you want to know. 2023 Atlas Obscura. The government would buy as much milk as it took to move that price. But their purpose has shifted over the years. See. The U.S. has too much cheese 1.4 billion pounds of it to be exact. [4]. Currently, more than 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m2) is occupied and 8,000,000 square feet (740,000 m2) are available for future expansion. Start with this beginner's guide to the neighborhood, 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, Escape your house with this list of outdoor adventures around Kansas City, Kick off your summer with outdoor music and movies in Kansas City, Kansas City is home to a lot of offbeat and fun museums. Andy Novakovic spent his summers as a kid working on his grandparents' dairy farm in Wisconsin. NOVAKOVIC: It's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. as well as other partner offers and accept our, http://eapcontent.ap.org/jpg/2015/20150914/16/be46cf305fa20029820f6a70670013cf.jpg?contentid=be46cf305fa20029820f6a70670013cf/fmt=jpg/role=Preview/reldt=2015-09-14T16:35:59/media=Photo/recordid=a772a7d9f93f488487ec5a05e64f976a/itemid=a772a7d9f93f488487ec5a05e64f976a/objfilename=preview.jpg/authToken=eNotikEKwyAURE%2bkzNf4NQuhV4lWwUVj0Ei78PC10FnM48Gb6eNZG%2bsIO4OwRg4zFh%2fSxjFrCJMPJQC1C6eQBR8WbFemY56j%2b1jPu5Uw7tr6I4xeztTX9fJMTcb6mtfb%2f5UMZrk8b5LAkn4k8wXMhif%2b&token=1442512801_9D4E1758BD6D116C2F559647389B3542, NOW WATCH: Incredible video inside Hang Son Doong the largest cave in the world.

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