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CARTER: But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. All rights reserved. But there is a chance that the government may be in the business of government cheese again. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! It's only about a 3-inch-in-diameter hole. Youll want to check out this cool hiking trail that has another cave youre welcome to explore. In the 2000s, you could still take an official tour and potentially find a way in for a D.I.Y. NOVAKOVIC: So it's fundamental economics. Youve heard about the subterranean chamber beneath the land near Worlds of Fun, right? A large portion is also owned by companies, who . Westons downtown district was established in 1837, so theres a lot of history here. 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. That is, until last month. 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. DUFFIN: Nevertheless, when Carter got elected, he goes all in. Slice a package of sausages or dice some ham, or both, you do you. He says the government was buying powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese - only grade-A cheddar, though. 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. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MARTHA AND SNOOP'S POTLUCK DINNER PARTY"). Food Theory: Why is the Government Hiding 1.4 BILLION Pounds of Cheese? Help yourself. WTF Happened to Government Cheese? - Vice ASCHEBROCK: It was 10 times better than - I hate - you know, Velveeta is OK. NOVAKOVIC: It's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. Youll have to climb down to get to it, led mysteriously by a sequence of ramps and labyrinthine walkways. Before that, he was a reporter for Miami's WLRN. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. And what percentage of economists would you say are able to milk a cow by hand? Yes, the Government Really Does Stash Billions of Pounds of Cheese in The Campground recently unearthed pieces of the distillerys tile floor as they were renovating their own bar. There were 40-pound blocks and 500-pound barrels. Trucker gives video tour of 43 million square foot 'cave - CDLLife ASCHEBROCK: Now, I'm not sure if you know - if you've ever seen a 500-pound steel barrel of cheese. 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 . DUFFIN: The thing about price controls is that once you start them, they are really, really hard to unwind. The Little Known Cave In Kansas That Everyone Should Explore - Only In And before that, he was a reporter for his friend T.C. But remember; the raw ingredients were grade A cheddar cheese, some of it personally certified by Bob Aschebrock. 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. And so they pass a law saying that they want the price of milk to go up automatically every six months. Limestone caves in the Kansas City area have been used to store immigration records for years. Kansas City underground: How to explore the hidden locations - KCUR 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. And he says the government could not just release a flood of surplus cheese onto the market because it would crush cheese producers. In response to this dairy shortage and 30% inflation . NOVAKOVIC: It was pretty hard to predict that it would get as bad as it got. DUFFIN: (Laughter) That's right. You've got to be on they special mailing list. ASCHEBROCK: There is a bung - what they call a bunghole up on the top. A grader, where you do quality checks on it. MALONE: I'm Kenny Malone. No purchase necessary. Offer subject to change without notice. Hogwarts, who? MALONE: Now, to be fair, that's probably not enough to start filling caves again. How do we - how do we get this cat out of the tree? 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). Either one should get you a higher price. The Missouri Penitentiary in Jefferson City is rumored to be riddled with spirits. As a busy mother of one crazy kid, two cats, and two geckos, they write whenever there is spare time. Kraft Foods, the multinational conglomerate that makes countless grocery products in addition to cheese, is about none of that, however. It also could have tried to send it overseas as foreign aid, like we do with other surplus commodities. Accuracy and availability may vary. Last year, the U.S. produced nearly 12 billion pounds of cheese -- an all-time high, according to the USDA. 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. 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. USCIS opened its National Records Center in a cave in Lee's Summit, Missouri, in 1999. I get in my car in my garage at home and drive underground here, so its all temperature controlled. Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month. Jimmy Carter was running for president. "Kansas City is a world leader in the use of underground space for human occupancy," he said. MALONE: And I'm Kenny Malone. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. The National Archives Goes Underground | National Archives SNOOP DOGG: Martha's never had a bite of government cheese in her life. Over the course of the decade, inflation in the U.S. skyrocketed from 5.5 percent up to 14 percent. 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. In 2016, dairy farmers resorted to simply dumping 43 million gallons of milk down the drain. NOVAKOVIC: Well, probably, you know, close to a hundred percent are able. warehouses in Germany, Belgium, and France. In fact, if you see my shape, you would know that I eat enough to keep the tank full. 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. It's also mostly water, so you've got to haul it around in those, like, gas tankers. Each year, several foot races are run in the cave system. MALONE: Government cheese became a symbol of a crappy government handout. The Missouri River town is known for its charming main drag and castle-like college, Park University. MALONE: So it's 1977. DUFFIN: OK. That doesn't look great. MALONE: The government is creating a price floor. CALLAHAN: So it'd be all the way to the ceiling. To do so, however, required a serious upfront investment. Missouri's cheese caves store more than 7 million pounds of dairy. Here And not all of it was aging well. 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. The government eventually tired of being involved in this . Andy Novakovic is a dairy economist at Cornell University. OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. This story was first published in KCUR's Creative Adventure newsletter. But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. Known for its hiking trails (with Missouri River views), wineries and the McCormick distillery, Weston is also home to OMalleys, the oldest bar in Missouri. Feast Your Eyes: Kraft's Massive Underground Cheese Cave Photo - GOOD Youll love exploring this amazing geological wonder. So the thing that the government was concerned about is what's called commercial displacement. NOVAKOVIC: The federal government wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do with tanker loads of milk. The U.S. Has a Massive Cheese Surplus - Smithsonian Magazine And welcome to PLANET MONEY. 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 Rieger family went into banking and the West Bottoms distillery was paved over. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has the largest domestic reserve of cheese of all varieties, including cheddar, Swiss and American . MALONE: By this point, Jimmy Carter was out of office. MALONE: As the government bought more and more cheese, sure, the price of milk went up. MALONE: Until there was no more room for you to be in this room? Through the years, Kansas Citians have utilized a number of buried passageways for transportation, illegal (at the time) or otherwise. MALONE: Bob Aschebrock spent 30 years as a USDA cheese inspector. Although other facilities like SubTropolis exist, there are none on the same such scale. MALONE: Are you pretty annoying to eat cheese with? Well, its called SubTropolis, is owned by Hunt Midwest yes, the same Hunt family that owns the Kansas City Chiefs and is wide enough to hold 42 Arrowhead Stadiums. Theres even a train track winding through the colossal complex, and many, many exit signs.