And he tells me, these were never government-owned caves. Its more than a hobby, its a passion.. It certainly was on the edge of that. 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? Now heres a story that comes full circle. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. 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. In response to this dairy shortage and 30% inflation . In 1976, Jimmy Carter got on a stage and said something seemingly innocuous. 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. SubTropolis is used by around 50 businesses and organizations, for a variety of purposes. Starting in 1995, a government nonprofit has promoted a pro-dairy policy - in direct opposition to the Department of Agriculture and government nutritionists. Try the frozen treat that inspired Arrested Development's famous banana stand. Kenny Malone has the epic tale of government cheese. Over the years, the industry has found all sorts of ways to get rid of its excess supplysome more insidious than others. It's only about a 3-inch-in-diameter hole. 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. The USDA helped "cut the glut" then by purchasing $20 million worth of fresh cheese. https://bit.ly/2CdCooV Theorists, did you know the government is hiding caves full of cheese from us? "If they haven't been used, no one knows what state of deterioration they are in," Hasan said. I get in my car in my garage at home and drive underground here, so its all temperature controlled. MALONE: Right - very, very expensive cheese. MALONE: You can see pictures of the cheese cave. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! 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.!! MALONE: Dan says that the cheese took up about half an acre of space. (SOUNDBITE OF DROP ELECTRIC SONG, "WAKING UP TO THE FIRE"). Government buys more cheese. The government would buy as much milk as it took to move that price. "Kansas City is a world leader in the use of underground space for human occupancy," he said. Behold the power of cheese. At Kanopolis park, near the lake of the same name, there's a short trail from a parking area that leads you through the brush into a clearing. Specifically, the federal government had 560 million pounds of cheese, most of it stored in vast subterranean storage facilities. What are the most unusual places in Missouri? 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. There's a lot of history buried beneath Kansas City streets, from Prohibition-era passageways and underground caves to the oldest bar in Missouri. Yes, the Government Really Does Stash Billions of Pounds of Cheese in Missouri Caves The USDA has kept cheese and other dairy products in cold-storage caves for decades. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus milk and turning it into processed commodity cheesehad backfired, hard. ASCHEBROCK: I'm not running down Velveeta, but I'll tell you, the government processed loaf was 10 times - 100 times better. To learn more about the best caves in Missouri, read our article here. glimpse into the void but a modern-day viewing is near-impossible. You need a hacksaw. Syed E. Hasan, a geosciences professor emeritus at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said the "very pure" limestone was ideal for cement production to shore up the city's rapid expansion at that time. And he started floating this idea. ASCHEBROCK: It was 10 times better than - I hate - you know, Velveeta is OK. MALONE: Bob Aschebrock spent 30 years as a USDA cheese inspector. Have you seen these caves before? 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. MALONE: OK. OK. We're not here to make fun of Velveeta. ASCHEBROCK: You. Government . MALONE: Bob Aschebrock was one of the government's cheese graders. When maple syrup supplies run low, Canada taps into its strategic reserve. Hunt's extensive business dealings in Clay County contributed to the Chiefs having their NFL Training Camp at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri until 1991. Either one should get you a higher price. Visitors to the underworld will even find a whiskey distillery within the mined area, which stretches for more than 1 million square feet. We are @planetmoney. DUFFIN: Lever 1, lower the supply - you could do what they do in Canada and say - hey, no more milk - you can only produce so much milk. SNOOP DOGG: Martha's never had a bite of government cheese in her life. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: That's government cheese. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: The great cheese giveaway began today in California. DUFFIN: (Laughter) That's right. Yet part of this cheese mountain represents an enduring surplusa very literal representation of the dairy industrys mismatch with the realties of the market. MALONE: At one point, Donnie Wahlberg of the New Kids On The Block said, quote, "there's nothing like it. You took away my customers. Home; About; Gallery; Blog; Shop; Contact; My Account; Resources Makes sense, considering the natural limestone ledge bordering the river. Emily Standlee is a freelance writer at KCUR and a national award-winning essayist. ASCHEBROCK: There is a bung - what they call a bunghole up on the top. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Oh, yeah. This is, you know, important to me. MALONE: This is one of those slow-moving train wrecks that you can see coming from a mile away. NOVAKOVIC: Exactly. All our area around here - everybody had cheese. And the resulting demand just pushes the price of milk up. 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. But as Kansas Citians began to rely more on buses and their own vehicles in the 1940s and 1950s, the 8th Street tunnel ceased operations. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. They believe it was once part of the historic Heim Brewery, whose East Bottoms bottling plant theyd been renovating. Government Cheese Over the years, the government has gravitated toward one method of unloading dairy surplus: giving it to the poor. Born from tragedy, the remote national park is bringing tourism and other changes. Blackwell Motors showcases a variety of fiberglass animals, and people come from all around just to see them. JOHN BLOCK: You see that cake of cheese? Caves are usually found underground. 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. 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. NOVAKOVIC: It's really hard to balance what you want to do socially or politically with what you can get away with economically. NOVAKOVIC: Well, I think there's two basic lessons. The surplus dairy products now in storage have a market value of $3 billion. Offer available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). government cheese caves kansas city Heap the flour on your countertop and make a well in the center. 1 By Kimberlee N. Ried Enlarge Plan for the National Archives at Kansas City. Love Missouri? Leilas Hair Museum, located in Independence, is one of the most unusual places in Missouri. This story was first published in KCUR's Creative Adventure newsletter. Accuracy and availability may vary. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A state official estimated 300,000 people will get a taste of today's cheese. India and Bhutan's yak herders face steep challenges. MALONE: Novakovic says the government could have destroyed the cheese. A set of caves along Interstate 435 offered a convenient cold-storage option. In fact, it has trademarked the phrase "World's Largest Underground Business Complex." But milk doesn't store well, so the government bought other dairy products. DUFFIN: It's one thing for politicians to say, we want the price of milk to go up. 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. I am currently about 35 feet underground in an old converted limestone mine that is the size of 120 football fields. DUFFIN: OK. 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. But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. That number, though, pales in. Production has increased 3% in the past year, and 29% in the last decade. MALONE: So this leaves a couple of options. Anyway, the government had its plan in place. 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. 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: (Laughter) And you just have a big knife. I can tell you what we had to reject it for - flat, bitter, yeasty, malty, old milk, fruity MALONE: That sounds lovely. Here's a few you should know, A guide to discovering Kansas City's public art installations. And so they pass a law saying that they want the price of milk to go up automatically every six months. DUFFIN: The USDA figured out that if they paid about 39 bucks for a 40-pound block of cheese, then it would have this ripple effect. Unfortunately, your shopping bag is empty. Theres evidence the second story was a ballroom, complete with a stage, dumbwaiter and box office window. ASCHEBROCK: And that's what you grade. MARTHA STEWART: Where do you buy government cheese? It is more than a food that. MALONE: The government asked economists, including Andy Novakovic, to figure out how it could get out of the cheese buying business without devastating the farmers they were trying to help in the first place. To see the best of them, embark on this road trip to Missouris best abandoned places. KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. Who knows? 1 flavor defect he had to look out for was acidity. SubTropolis is a ginormous man-made cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City. SubTropolis is a 55,000,000-square-foot (5,100,000m2), 1,100-acre (4.5km2) artificial cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, that is claimed to be the world's largest underground storage facility. They actually had to rent out space in multiple caves. 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. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: The retail price of milk is going up more than 6 cents a gallon - soon. Search Query Show Search Podcasts & Shows The Campground recently unearthed pieces of the distillerys tile floor as they were renovating their own bar. Youll have to climb down to get to it, led mysteriously by a sequence of ramps and labyrinthine walkways. MALONE: That is right. 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. 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. Ashley Day. ASCHEBROCK: But then we had the issue with storing the stuff. DUFFIN: It is this moment that government cheese truly enters the American bloodstream. Original reels of Hollywood blockbusters "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" are stored in the caves. We literally paid them money to stop producing milk. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The great cheese giveaway began today in California. The caves were largely abandoned after the city's building boom stopped, Hasan said. They are open spaces of various sizes and shapes that often intersect with each another or with different generated structures, creating vast cave systems. 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. ASCHEBROCK: I traveled 39 states, and I was gone as long as 10 weeks at a time doing that. Melt Two tbps of butter into a skillet, then add the onion, garlic and mushrooms. The best hidden gems and little known destinations - straight to your inbox. (Shouting) Government cheese. He says the government was buying powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese - only grade-A cheddar, though. It doesn't take long to see the three caves, but once you're here, you'll spend a long time looking and exploring. Youve heard about the subterranean chamber beneath the land near Worlds of Fun, right? Al and Ralph may have influenced food safety labeling and your pizzas cheese. Why Did the U.S. Government Amass More Than a Billion Pounds of Cheese? MALONE: Even if that bite just looks like some delicious cheese? 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. I mean ASCHEBROCK: We had cheese in every cold storage in the United States, including the caves in Kansas that were full of that stuff. DUFFIN: Government cheese starts to show up in all kinds of popular culture. [4]. This is Dan Callahan. DUFFIN: OK. They feature an abundance of ores, as well as hostile mobs that spawn in the darkness. I wonder how old some of these marks are? 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).