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The Fabled Missouri Cheese Caves

  • Madison Holt
  • Mar 5
  • 9 min read

Even people outside of the Ozarks have heard the rumors. Supposedly, the United States government has stockpiled 1.4 billion pounds of cheese deep beneath Springfield, Missouri.


The rumor has been around since at least the 1980s, when locals began to wonder where all of the government cheese was stored. From early on, the Springfield Underground—a fully lit and bustling underground industrial park at the northeastern edge of the city—has been linked with this cheese supply. The underground complex is used for general warehouse storage and even office space, but cheese remains at the front of our minds.


There are crumbs of fact in the urban legend, but the reality is not quite so simple. In order to tackle the claim that 1.4 billion pounds of government cheese is stored beneath Missouri, we have to break it down into parts. What is government cheese, and how did it come to be? What is a cheese cave, and are they only in Missouri? Where does the 1.4 billion figure come from, and is it accurate? All the while, we should consider where this myth fits in our shared local history.


Pieces of cheese arranged on a table in a scene evocative of a desert landscape.
Pieces of cheese arranged on a table in a scene evocative of a desert landscape. Photograph by Springfield Newspapers, Inc. staff. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

What is Government Cheese?

Dairy farmers' livelihoods were threatened by market swings as a national cheese shortage in the 1970s was followed by a cheese surplus in the 1980s. In order to keep cheese prices and farmers' incomes stable, the federal government began buying surplus cheese. From this surplus came government cheese—an amalgamation of cheddar and American cheeses, melted together and formed into five-pound blocks. Ubiquitous in the Reagan era, these blocks of government or commodity cheese were distributed to qualifying households through the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program—though not without an initial struggle.


A block of government cheese. Text on packaging reads "Pasteurized Process American Cheese. Donated by U. S. Department of Agriculture For Food Help Programs. Not To Be Sold or Exchanged. Keep Refrigerated. Net Weight 5 Pounds.
A block of government cheese, prepared and packaged for distribution in the Ozarks in 1982. Photograph by Sandy Watson. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

The "free the cheese" campaign was born during the recession of the early 1980s, when citizens in California caught wind of government cheese sitting in massive stockpiles as everyday people struggled to afford basic goods. As a result of the efforts of various advocacy groups and public officials, a warehouse in Sacramento released 168,000 pounds of commodity cheese to qualifying Californians on Christmas Eve, 1981. Five other warehouses in Northern California released a combined three million pounds of cheese shortly after. President Ronald Reagan promised the further release of 30 million pounds of stockpiled cheese in all 50 states.


Of the cheese allocated for Missouri, 80,700 pounds were reserved for Springfield, Joplin, and West Plains. This cheese was to be distributed in the Springfield area by the Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation, in the West Plains region by Ozark Action, Inc., and in the Joplin area by the Economic Security Corporation.


Men and women of various ages wait in line outdoors.
Greene County residents wait in line for free cheese outside of the Salvation Army on Boonville Avenue. Photograph by Bryan Grigsby. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

By January 21, 1982, over 43,000 pounds had arrived in Springfield and were being held by the General Warehouse Corporation for distribution. A week later, eligible Greene County residents received their allotted loaf of commodity cheese, "with requests surpassing supplies by 11 a.m. at several distribution sites," according to Bill Maurer and Chris Whitley of the Springfield Leader & Press.


This distribution effort seems to have been the root of early speculation about hidden caches of government cheese. "It's a little strange," said Richard Cline, a Springfieldian who was picking up a block of cheese for a neighbor. "It kind of makes you wonder how much other stuff they've been keeping underground all this time."


Could Cline's musing have been just a turn of phrase? It is true that the government cheese had spent some time in refrigerated underground storage on its journey from farm to kitchen table. But where—and for how long?


What is a Cheese Cave?

The phrase "cheese caves" brings a striking vision to mind: endless wheels of hard cheese against a backdrop of natural limestone formations. However, that image has little basis in reality.


It is true that most of the federal government's cheese stockpile is stored underground. However, these storage facilities are usually converted quarries or mines, not natural caverns. This is the case for the Springfield Underground, which was originally a limestone quarry operated by the Griesemer Stone Company. Once enough limestone had been removed, a room-and-pillar method of mining was used to create subterranean warehouses. Because these excavated spaces naturally maintain a consistently cool temperature, refrigeration costs are lower than in traditional above-ground storage. This use for the Springfield Underground was planned from the early days of the venture, without the involvement of government officials. The storage side of the enterprise was managed by the General Warehouse Corporation, which would merge with Griesemer Stone Company in 1994 to form the Springfield Underground.


A large group of well dressed officials tour an underground storage space. The walls and ceilings are limestone and the floor is concrete.
Springfield and Greene County officials tour the General Warehouse Corporation's underground storage facilities in 1981. Today, this site is known as the Springfield Underground. Photograph by Kevin Manning. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

While the Springfield Underground is often labeled the Missouri Cheese Cave, there is more than one suspect in this cheesy mystery, and each of these storage facilities likely stored commodity cheese in January 1982. Across the country, 30 former limestone mines are now being used for underground storage. Of these facilities, 21 are located in Missouri, a region which was "endowed... with an abundance of limestone" as a result of its geological history, according to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Because of its widespread limestone deposits (and therefore limestone quarries and mines), Missouri is uniquely well-equipped to store cheese and other food products.


Kraft Trucks parked at a loading bay at the Springfield Underground.
Kraft Foods trucks parked at a loading bay at the Springfield Underground. Photograph from Kraft Foods 40th Anniversary booklet. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

A notable long-time lessee of storage space in the Springfield Underground is Kraft Foods, well-known for producing cheese and other dairy products. Kraft has stored raw cheese in what would become the Springfield Underground since the early 1960s. In 1963, a writer for the Sunday News & Leader described Kraft's subterranean storage facilities as a "portion of the cave, containing 111,000 square feet" that was "jammed virtually to the doors and to the rafters with raw cheese collected from plants throughout the middle west." Schreiber Foods, another dairy manufacturer, leases space in the Carthage Underground near Joplin in a very similar capacity.


There is cheese in these caves—no doubt about that! However, Kraft and Schreiber's cheese is for commercial sale. It isn't the same as commodity cheese.


At one point, however, something very similar to the stories of "government cheese caves" was located not far from the Ozarks. In October 1981, an article in the Springfield Daily News wrote of "America's biggest dairy case," located "deep inside the cold, dark limestone tunnels under Kansas City." According to Mark Peterson of the Associated Press, "200 million pounds of government surplus butter, dry milk and cheese" were once "stacked like pillars," covering "acres of gray stone floor." This was the now-defunct Inland Storage and Distribution Center of Kansas City, Kansas. While this was an impressive stockpile of government cheese, it was not technically a Missouri cheese cave.

An illustration of cheese being sliced. Text reads "Cheese. Surplus cheese is a wealth of protein."
An illustration of surplus cheese that accompanied an article in the January 13, 1982 issue of the Springfield Leader & Press. Illustration by Mike Willis.

While the article about the Inland Storage and Distribution Center was published on the eleventh page of the newspaper, it seems to have been widely known that government cheese was stored underground in the Midwest. This could explain Richard Cline's 1982 musings about "how much other stuff they've been keeping underground all this time."


1.4 Billion Pounds of Cheese?

The Missouri Cheese Cave myth as it's presented today is specific: 1.4 billion pounds of government cheese, squirreled away under Missouri. This number did not come out of thin air, but it is misleading. The national stockpile of cheese hovers around the 1.4 and 1.5 billion pound mark today, fluctuating as inventory is used and replaced. Missouri does not hold all of it.


Additionally, not all of that cheese is owned by the government. In recent USDA reports, foods are not separated according to what is or is not government property. In the USDA's report for December 2025, all commodities were reported "regardless of origin" and without distinction between those owned by commercial businesses or government entities. That report indicated that 1.37 billion pounds of natural cheese were in stock in all warehouses across the country, but that total includes product owned by companies like Kraft and by the USDA.


The USDA cold storage report for January 1982, when commodity cheese was first distributed to the Ozarks, recorded that 717 million pounds of cheese were in storage nationwide. However, only 254.7 million pounds of that stockpile were government cheese, and less than 100,000 pounds were stored beneath Springfield at that time.


A man uses a forklift to move boxes of product in an underground storage space.
A man operates a forklift in an underground warehouse managed by the General Warehouse Corporation (later the Springfield Underground). Photograph by Bryan Grigsby. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

Addressing the Cheese Cave Myth

Like a game of telephone, as the story of the cheese in underground storage was passed along, some details were dropped and others added on. It was no secret in 1982 that commodity cheese was stored in massive cold storage warehouses. In Missouri (and parts of Kansas), cold storage is often kept underground due to the geology of the region. Because this underground storage was unusual, it was memorable. As the excitement over government cheese died down, the details were lost. As interest in the cheese caves has grown in recent years, those lost details were replaced by exaggerations.


Returning to our initial question—is the Missouri cheese cave myth true?—forces us to consider the matter as it is presented. The myth puts 1.4 billion pounds of government cheese in Missouri caves. There is over a billion pounds of cheese stored nationally, but that includes all public and private warehouses that report to the USDA. The myth, as it's presented, is just not true. But, from what we've uncovered, we can see how the myth became what it is today.


Did Missouri cheese caves ever exist? It depends on how you look at the question. One piece of evidence that could prove the existence of a government cheese cave would be a photograph of clearly labeled government cheese, taken inside an underground warehouse at a time when surplus cheese was being distributed.


A photograph in newsprint of a man standing amid boxes. The details of the photograph are hard to make out.
Cecil Swinnhart, an employee of the General Warehouse Corporation, stands amid large stacks of boxes. This image has degraded in quality due to multiple medium transfers. Photograph by Kevin Manning. From the January 21, 1982 issue of the Springfield Leader & Press.

The photograph above was printed on the front page of the January 21, 1982 issue of the Springfield Leader & Press. The transfer to newsprint and later to microfilm have degraded the image, making it difficult to make out details. Fortunately, the accompanying caption identifies the man in the photograph as Cecil Swinnhart, an employee of the General Warehouse Corporation. From these clues, a digital copy of the full image was found in the Library's From the Darkroom collection. The photograph shows the limestone walls of an underground warehouse.


Cecil Swinnhart stands amid boxes of government cheese in an underground storage facility.
Cecil Swinnhart, an employee of the General Warehouse Corporation, stands amid boxes of government cheese. Photograph by Kevin Manning. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

The boxes in the photograph are clearly labeled "USDA Food," specifically "pasteurized process American cheese."


Detail of boxes in the previous photo. Text on boxes reads "Pasteurized Process American Cheese." The USDA logo is visible on several boxes.
Detail of boxes of government cheese stored by the General Warehouse Corporation (later the Springfield Underground) in 1982. Text on the boxes reads: "Pasteurized Process American Cheese." The USDA logo is visible on several boxes. Photograph by Kevin Manning. From the Springfield News-Leader Collection.

From our research, we know that the General Warehouse Corporation, which later became the Springfield Underground, operated the underground warehouse at this time. Therefore, this is photographic proof of government cheese in underground storage in Springfield, Missouri.


How long would USDA commodity cheese have to be kept underground for the space to be considered a "cheese cave"? It's safe to say that these boxes of government cheese were kept underground in Springfield for at least a week. Is that enough time to make the Springfield Underground a government cheese cave? Could the cheese pictured have come from another cheese cave, such as Inland Storage and Distribution? We are left with more questions than we started with, but also with a much better understanding of how the Missouri cheese cave myth came to be.


What seems on the surface to be a fun fact about Missouri quickly becomes a story of business, logistics, and food assistance in the United States. The rabbit hole runs deep and winds around the history of commodity foods and quarries-turned-warehouses. When these two stories converged during the distribution of government cheese in the Ozarks in 1982, what else could have resulted but the enduring legend of the Missouri cheese cave?



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