Why Ford And The U.S. Postal Service Both Use The Same Kansas City Cave

From inactive speedways and abandoned malls to Amazon warehouses, automakers lease massive swaths of parking wherever it's conveniently located to store unsold vehicles. However, the most unusual inventory storage sits in Kansas City, or beneath it in this case. Ford leases space within SubTropolis, a 14-million-square-foot business park in a limestone mine. The automaker isn't the only tenant at this expansive underground facility. It is also the home of the U.S. Postal Service's Stamp Fulfillment Services.

What eventually became SubTropolis began life in the 1940s as a mine for Bethany Falls limestone, the 270-million-year-old geologic layer beneath the area. According to Flatland, the mined material was used to support Kansas City's rapid post-war expansion. The metropolitan area's population nearly doubled between 1940 and 1960, swelling from 686,643 to 1,266,447. While mining slowed in the early 1960s, AFC and Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt saw an opportunity in the empty cavern.

Hunt Midwest opened SubTropolis in 1964. The first tenant was a construction company that wanted a place to store its equipment over the winter without paying for winterization. The 160-foot depth and surrounding rock are ideal insulators, keeping the cave at a constant temperature year-round. According to Hagerty, Ford initially entered SubTropolis in 1965, leasing 82,000 square feet as a parts storage area for its nearby Kansas City Assembly Plant.

Ford's presence in SubTropolis has expanded over 1 million square feet since the 1960s. Many car enthusiasts became aware of the facility through the viral photo of '73 Ford Mavericks stored there. Today, Ford isn't just using the underground facility for storage. A plethora of aftermarket upfitters have chosen to be based near Ford in SubTropolis to have easy access to the company's F-150 pickup trucks and Transit vans. Thankfully, the floors are paved inside the cavern nowadays.

Besides cars, the USPS stores its stamps beneath Kansas City. According to the National Association of Letter Carriers, there are roughly $3 billion worth of stamps in SubTropolis. The benefits of underground storage were too significant to ignore. The rent is roughly half that of a similarly sized facility on the surface. The naturally climate-controlled environment also translates to a 70% savings in energy costs. Sometimes the best place to do business just looks like the villain's lair in a James Bond movie.