Inside The Government Cheese Caves That Hold 1.4 Billion Pounds

Faced with a surplus of dairy products in the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. government opened a number of government "cheese caves," especially in Missouri, to hold its ballooning supply.

Stories have long spread that somewhere far beneath the United States, the U.S. government is hiding mountains of cheese. While some internet retellings of the story may get some details wrong, there’s more than a kernel of truth in the story of U.S. government cheese caves.

Indeed, there are cheese caves far beneath the ground — largely in states like Missouri — and they do hold over a billion pounds of cheese. However, these “cheese caves” are really more like warehouses, converted from old limestone mines. Most of them are now rented out to private companies.

It may sound strange at first, but the reaso