Vice President Henry Wallace - Green Mountain Falls Resident

Henry Wallace

Henry Agard Wallace was born on October 7, 1888 on the family farm near the small town of Orient in Adair County, Iowa. He graduated from Iowa State College in Ames in 1910. For most of the next two decades, until 1929, he was on the editorial staff of the family’s agricultural newspaper, the “Wallace’s Farmer”, which was published in Des Moines. During Wallace’s last five years there, he was its editor. His knowledge of agriculture was extensive and he published many articles on the subject. He also was involved in efforts to breed high-yield strains of corn. Henry was a pioneer of developing hardier, more productive crops and he revolutionized American agriculture.

Wallace on his Iowa Farm

While in college, he became fascinated with the relatively new science of genetics and started breeding hybrid corn in 1920. In 1923, he produced a high-yielding hybrid called Copper Cross corn. In 1924, it became the first hybrid to win the gold medal in the Iowa Corn Yield Contest conducted by Iowa State.

In 1926, Henry started up the Hi-Bred Corn Company.

Wallace was the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from March 4, 1933, until September 4, 1940. He was the 33rd Vice President of the United States, serving from 1941 to 1945, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After the Vice Presidency, Henry than served as our 10th United States Secretary of Commerce from March 2, 1945 to September 20, 1946.

He was named the “Most Influential Iowan of the 20th Century” in 1999 by the Des Moines Register.

The Wallace Family owned their beautiful Green Mountain Falls summer home in 1922 and lived there until the 1940s.

Henry would relax in the beauty of Ute Pass where he was distanced from all politics. He was easily recognized in town.

All that remains at the Wallace vacation home in Green Mountain Falls is this old outhouse.

Henry died on Thursday, November 18, 1965 at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut.  He is interred at the Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.