A grader, where you do quality checks on it. The 55,000,000-square-foot, 1,100-acre underground storage facility is believed to be the world's largest site of its kind. Theres evidence the second story was a ballroom, complete with a stage, dumbwaiter and box office window. NOVAKOVIC: Well, probably, you know, close to a hundred percent are able. Through our sister company, Cold Zone, we are able to store refrigerated food, such as cheese for our tenants. It was built by a German immigrant named John Georgian, who instead of relying on those trusty limestone caves weve come to know and love dug out his own brewery space beneath Weston. CALLAHAN: So it'd be all the way to the ceiling. SNOOP DOGG: (Rapping) And we ghetto like a [expletive] hot buttered toast in the mornin' with some government cheese. China props up pork prices by buying surplus for its frozen pork reserve. 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. (SOUNDBITE OF KAZAM'S "ROMANTIQUE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. does st martin parish have school tomorrow. MALONE: One part of the solution then was to gently get that milk supply down. But that does not mean the government had fixed the problem. DUFFIN: Just this week, we finally learned some of the details. DUFFIN: So the basic question was, what kinds of milk products can the government buy and store? The year was 1981, and President Ronald Reagan had a cheese problem. It was created by digging into the Bethany Falls limestone mine and is, in places, 160 feet beneath the surface. 1 By Kimberlee N. Ried Enlarge Plan for the National Archives at Kansas City. Get more stories delivered right to your email. With temperatures maintained at 25F and 35F, staff have nicknamed the space the "Ice Cube." MALONE: Are you pretty annoying to eat cheese with? So they created a brand-new special program to give the cheese away through food banks. 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. India and Bhutan's yak herders face steep challenges. BOB ASCHEBROCK: Yes. While many of the caves feature paved roads and utilities, other areas consist of dirt floors and uncontrolled entrances. Who knows? They actually had to rent out space in multiple caves. You don't want that? 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. Melt Two tbps of butter into a skillet, then add the onion, garlic and mushrooms. When Hamilton and partner Sean Smith purchased the property in 2021, they also found a locked safe and penny tile beneath green carpeting. And to be fair, it was processed cheese kind of like a brick of Velveeta. In 2016, dairy farmers resorted to simply dumping 43 million gallons of milk down the drain. +44 (0)7540 787812 [email protected]. Lets just call it tunnel vision. Word is the tunnel sustained water damage, so time will tell if it sees the light of day. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider 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. It doesn't take long to see the three caves, but once you're here, you'll spend a long time looking and exploring. DUFFIN: It is this moment that government cheese truly enters the American bloodstream. OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NOVAKOVIC: So it's fundamental economics. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! NOVAKOVIC: To persuade farmers to produce less. government cheese caves kansas city This is, you know, important to me. MALONE: Right. If the girl's MALONE: Government cheese also shows up in tons of songs. Oh, yeah. Lamar Hunt, the late founder of the Kansas City Chiefs, is perhaps the most well-known of the cave developers. Government . As a busy mother of one crazy kid, two cats, and two geckos, they write whenever there is spare time. But remember; the raw ingredients were grade A cheddar cheese, some of it personally certified by Bob Aschebrock. 1. If youve been in the cheeky, sophisticated Campground bar, youve set foot where the original J. Rieger & Co. building stood. Probably the cheapest and most practical thing would be to dump it in the ocean., Instead, they decided to jettison 30 million pounds of it into welfare programs and school lunches through the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program. 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.!! Besides those already mentioned, other businesses include Cerner, NextPage, Hallmark Cards, Hantover, Clore Automotive, and Knapheide. Just dont forget your pillar number. Known as the Springfield Underground, this is a cheese cave of epic proportions covering a . 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. Springfield's "cheese caves" aren't natural caves like Fantastic Caverns or Crystal Cave. MALONE: Bob Aschebrock was one of the government's cheese graders. Youll have to climb down to get to it, led mysteriously by a sequence of ramps and labyrinthine walkways. 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. MALONE: Now, to be fair, that's probably not enough to start filling caves again. Currently 5,000,000 square feet is occupied and 10,000,000 square feet are "improved.". DUFFIN: This was not just political pandering. The Heim family owned property all over Kansas City at the turn of the century, including breweries called Rochester and Imperial, as well as the one in East Bottoms. 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 Rieger family went into banking and the West Bottoms distillery was paved over. 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. MALONE: The government is creating a price floor. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. The Trump administration says today it will make an estimated $12 billion in government assistance available. It is an enormous artificial cave situated above the Missouri River. Today, the National Archives has four underground facilities. Thanks for listening. Each year, several foot races are run in the cave system. By Emily Baron Cadloff Global Research, May 30, 2022 Modern Farmer 25 May 2022 Region: USA Theme: Global Economy The Giant Animal Cluster, located in Bonne Terre is another wacky attraction in Missouri. You may wonder why the government has a massive cheese stockpile. Caves . I'm Karen Duffin. government cheese caves kansas city. 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. NOVAKOVIC: Yeah. No? I mean, there was all kinds of tricks that you - that we had to be looking for. 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. That is, until last month. CALLAHAN: So you'd be - it's 17 feet, 16 feet. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A state official estimated 300,000 people will get a taste of today's cheese. Leading up to the Second World War, dairy was used in this very patriotic waystrengthening our bodies to fight the war.. I am currently about 35 feet underground in an old converted limestone mine that is the size of 120 football fields. Imagine watching lines of people wait around to be handed a giant block of moldy, bright orange 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. HOME; INTERIORS; EXTERIORS; OFFICE & PORTRAITS; PUBLICITY/EVENTS; CONSTRUCTION; INFO We are @planetmoney. There are these massive columns, and it looks like something the "Lord Of The Rings" dwarves built. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. 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. All our area around here - everybody had cheese. 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. The Missouri River town is known for its charming main drag and castle-like college, Park University. Kansas City Chiefs Home: The official source of the latest Chiefs news, videos, photos, tickets, rosters, and gameday information Remember Government cheese? The walls themselves are limestone, of course. MALONE: The government cheese caves started to empty out. "If they haven't been used, no one knows what state of deterioration they are in," Hasan said. Have you seen these caves before? But the bite came in terms of how much it cost for that opportunity. Andy Novakovic is a dairy economist at Cornell University. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. I was hired as a cheese grader. 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. Weve looked and looked at ways to deal with this, but the distribution problems are incredible, a USDA official was quoted as saying. Even the beverage distributors, they had cheese in the storage. ", (SOUNDBITE OF NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK SONG, "YOU GOT IT (THE RIGHT STUFF)"). MALONE: That did some good. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. 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. Cheese-makers buy more milk. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. ASCHEBROCK: Now, I'm not sure if you know - if you've ever seen a 500-pound steel barrel of cheese. We literally paid them money to stop producing milk. 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. And they're like, we need more cheese graders. There is currently about $85 million earmarked to buy dairy and distribute it to places like schools and food banks. And he says getting rid of caves full of grade-A government cheese was an economically tricky issue. Makes sense, considering the natural limestone ledge bordering the river. At a time when American families are under increasing financial pressure, their Government cannot sit by and watch millions of pounds of food turn into waste, Reagan said in a written statement. 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. It was - some of it almost taste like natural cheddar. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. I'm Karen Duffin. Do you or does someone you know work at SubTropolis? This one-of-a-kind display showcases a wide variety of hair art, historic hair pieces, and more. So the clever folks at USDA said, what if we went down the supply chain one step NOVAKOVIC: And looked at dairy products that are storable? Yes, that is a lot of cheese. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE. On the north edge of the complex Hunt developed the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement park complex. This area is also a great place to go hiking, camping, and fishing. Back in the 1880s, after a year of toiling through the bluffs dividing Downtown from West Bottoms, rapid transit pioneer Robert Gillham and a team of workers managed to push the last underground bricks into place. Have you been inside? 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. It is huge. Hogwarts, who? MALONE: You can see pictures of the cheese cave. 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. By 1984, the U.S. storage facilities contained 1.2 billion pounds, or roughly five pounds of cheese for every American. DUFFIN: OK. The Washington Post reported that the interest and storage costs for all that dairy was costing around $1 million a day. JUNOT DIAZ: Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. And he tells me, these were never government-owned caves. That doesn't look great. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The great cheese giveaway began today in California. 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. 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. Starting in 1995, a government nonprofit has promoted a pro-dairy policy - in direct opposition to the Department of Agriculture and government nutritionists. Production has increased 3% in the past year, and 29% in the last decade. So getting people to do it was always a challenge. But this was not putting even a dent in the surplus. Dug into the Bethany Falls limestone mine, SubTropolis is, in places, 160 feet (49m) beneath the surface. 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. To learn more about the best caves in Missouri, read our article here. (Shouting) Government cheese. A native Midwesterner with a love for family, friends, and learning new things. Blackwell Motors showcases a variety of fiberglass animals, and people come from all around just to see them. Westons downtown district was established in 1837, so theres a lot of history here. In fact, it has trademarked the phrase "World's Largest Underground Business Complex." Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. Original reels of Hollywood blockbusters "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" are stored in the caves. DUFFIN: OK. glimpse into the void but a modern-day viewing is near-impossible. G. DEP: (Rapping) Can't buy trees with government cheese. These are the 13 weirdest places you can possibly go in Missouri. SubTropolis is used by around 50 businesses and organizations, for a variety of purposes. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus milk and turning it into processed commodity cheesehad backfired, hard. ASCHEBROCK: I traveled 39 states, and I was gone as long as 10 weeks at a time doing that. 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. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! That's because it maintains the proper humidity that cheese needs to ripen to peak flavor and texture, just like a real cheese cave. We hope so. But cheese doesn't travel well, so the government landed on a third option. These days, units are available for business leasing or to store items that would benefit from the particular climate control found underground. In fact, if you see my shape, you would know that I eat enough to keep the tank full. . 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. 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He is now a dairy economist at Cornell University. I mean, it was really, really good product. The tunnel was complete, though steep, so a new one was built to weave through it at a lower grade. 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. 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. 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. Very, very expensive cheese. Caves are usually found underground. To the cheese cave. 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. Out of 25 buildings, a whopping 24 were saloons. NOVAKOVIC: It's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. 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. 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. You need a hacksaw. That was pretty good. Kansas City even has special ordinances that govern the use of underground space, including how the roofs must be supported, and about 3,000 to 4,000 people work full-time in the cave system, Hasan said. There you go. The federal government has been storing paperwork in these caves for nearly 25 years. 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. 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. Thank you! We don't do milk quotas - no Lever 1. 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. If you loved visiting this stunning spot, take a trip to Fisher Cave in Meramec State Park. ASCHEBROCK: And you insert it in through the block or the barrel or whatever. Lever 2, more demand - you could try to convince the public that they want to drink more milk. MALONE: Karen's doing the dance. Missouri's caves can . Cheese Caves Myth: Debunked. 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. 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? Well, sort of. 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? He spent 30 years testing and tasting cheese for the United States government. 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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. A slice of Kraft cheese is going to be less about. The reason why the dairy industry gets such preferential treatment is its status as this uncontested food in the diet, Wiley says. Posted on June 16, 2022 by June 16, 2022 by 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. But here is why government cheese has become a kind of parable of how government intervention in markets can have this, like, butterfly effect. There are literally train tracks leading into it. SNOOP DOGG: Martha's never had a bite of government cheese in her life. 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. DUFFIN: (Laughter) That's right. You cansign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday. And you can drive your car right into it. MALONE: And I'm Kenny Malone. I mean, we had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. Its first FRC opened in 1997 beneath Lee's Summit, and another opened in 2003 under Lenexa. ASCHEBROCK: But then we had the issue with storing the stuff. 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. 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. MALONE: Yes. We've got 60 million of these that the government owns with mold. Looking for more unusual places in Missouri? Fortunately, the rock here is soft enough to scratch something out without a lot of effort. Thank you! NOVAKOVIC: Butter was one, nonfat dry milk and cheese - and in particular, cheddar-type cheese. Roanoke Cave . Well, we got some real crafty guys that started putting 40-pound blocks of special cheese right under the bunghole. sign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday. 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. 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. And it took a few years, but a flood of cheese starts to come in. MALONE: So a campaign promise - that's what we call those. MALONE: I'm Kenny Malone. Missouri has more than 7,000 caves under its ground, though fewer than 20 are easily accessible to most people. His creation, SubTropolis, is the largest of the underground facilities with nearly 6 million square feet of industrial space for lease. MALONE: You were hired as someone to show up with a metal ASCHEBROCK: Where you do quality checks on 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? Cave Tours Missouri, long known as the "Cave State," has almost 6,400 caves, and Missouri State Parks showcases four of the best for public tours. MALONE: Even if that bite just looks like some delicious cheese? MALONE: This is one of those slow-moving train wrecks that you can see coming from a mile away. (Dean Russell/Here & Now) This article is more than 4 years old. 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. Why Did the U.S. Government Amass More Than a Billion Pounds of Cheese? The caves were largely abandoned after the city's building boom stopped, Hasan said. The Cheese Grotto isn't just about cheese storageit also allows you to age cheese at home. Jimmy Carter's campaign promise to help farmers in 1976 not only gave us government cheese but also milk mustaches. 41, no. During the 1980s, the U.S. government managed to offload its cheese stash. KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: The year was 1977. MALONE: So it's 1977. 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. Though its more a part of Midtown than Downtown, the space once known as Deans Downtown Underground is definitely down there. Go to the shop Go to the shop. But thats not all that was uncovered. Over the years, the industry has found all sorts of ways to get rid of its excess supplysome more insidious than others. (SOUNDBITE OF FREDERIC AUGER'S "SUNBURN"). Rather, the "caves" are part of a 3.2-million-square-foot warehouse under part of Springfield.. The Campground recently unearthed pieces of the distillerys tile floor as they were renovating their own bar. MALONE: Andy is still in the dairy world. Then, in the 1970s, everything started to go haywire. Even after the demand for dairy declined in the wake of World War II, the program functioned reasonably well for years. NOVAKOVIC: The federal government wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do with tanker loads of milk. I get in my car in my garage at home and drive underground here, so its all temperature controlled. Emily Standlee is a freelance writer at KCUR and a national award-winning essayist. Unlike corn or wheat, however, milk needed to be converted into more shelf-stable forms, specifically butter, dehydrated skim milk powder, and cheese.