What happens to a mine after the drilling is done?

Does it get shut down, boarded up?

Not in the case of an old limestone mine near Kansas City.

This particular mine has been transformed into what is called subtropa-less, a massive

industrial park underneath Kansas City.

With over 50 businesses and 1700 employees, subtropa-less is sprawling.

It's about the same square footage as the Pentagon.

I'm Dylan Therese, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

And today, we're going to the city under Kansas City, subtropa-less.

Or after this.

In the 1940s, in northeastern Kansas City, mining began on a massive 200-plus million-year-old

limestone formation.

Twenty years later, the mining company, which is owned by the Hunt family, also the owner

of the Kansas City Chiefs, had plenty of limestone left to excavate.

But they also had a lot of empty underground space from the areas that they had already

mined.

So they decided to put that empty space to use.

Somewhere along the line, somebody said, hey, man, this would be great for storage.

That's Joe Paris.

He's one of the founders of Paris Brothers.

It's a company that operates in subtropa-less.

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