A Great Dream for this Valley: Louis Bromfield and Wichita Falls Malabar Farm, 1949–1954

Louis Bromfield at the head of a table of Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce members. The inscription reads “Our best to Louis and Bob from a group of those bragging Texans, Wichita Falls, 2/18/49.” E. McGill, Photographer. Courtesy Louis Bromfield Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, The Ohio State University Libraries.

Born in Mansfield, Ohio, on December 27, 1896, Louis Bromfield grew up in an idyllic rural setting. He loved toiling on his grandfather’s farm and watching things grow from the earth. Upon reaching adulthood, Bromfield came to argue that agriculture could succeed in virtually any climate and soil if farmers would simply adapt rather than expending time and energy dreaming about what the land might be under different conditions. His vision dealt mainly with making the best of the circumstances and finding crops and livestock suited to the environment. This romantic vision, however, came to an unpleasant end in the early 1950s when he attempted to build a model farm near Wichita Falls, Texas.

Bromfield had noble intentions, experimenting with various crops in an arid region. He hoped that the property might become a pilot farm that would dissuade farmers from abandoning the land. Members of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce (WFCC), however, had a different vision and imagined the farm as a grand tourist attraction that might serve to make the city famous and bring in revenue. These conflicting purposes, both of which depended on the stubborn soil and climate of Wichita County, resulted in an embarrassing failure.¹

Bromfield completed high school in his birthplace of Mansfield, Ohio, then worked briefly for the local newspaper. He left in 1914 to attend Cornell Agricultural College for a year. He returned to Mansfield to help on the farm, but when the family sold the place, he pursued journalism at Columbia University. When World War I began, his education was once again disrupted as he left college to serve as a member of the American Ambulance Corps in France. While there, he received the Croix de Guerre and later received an honorary degree from Columbia for his service. After the war, Bromfield toured France, observing agricultural methods, but then returned to New York and his second love—the written word.²

Taking a reporting job at the New York City News Service, he soon resigned in favor of a position as an Associated Press editor. In 1921, he married Mary Appleton Wood and the next year, served as a theater critic and soon became a founding employee at TIME Magazine. The year 1924 proved an eventful one, given that his first child Anne was born and he published his first book, The Green Bay Tree. The following year, the family took a vacation to France and decided to stay, signing a fifty-year lease on a place in Senlis. Over the following years, Bromfield wrote more books, one of which, Early Autumn (1926), earned a Pulitzer Prize. As two more daughters, Hope (1929) and Ellen (1932), joined the family, Bromfield continued writing plays and books, eventually attracting the attention of Hollywood. As World War II neared, Bromfield feared for the situation in France. He sent his family stateside in 1939 and followed soon after.³

Still dedicated to his first love, farming, Bromfield bought three farms in Lucas, Ohio, and named the creation Malabar after the hill in Mumbai, India.⁴ He envisioned this farm as “an agricultural, economic, and social experiment that combined capitalistic free enterprise with social planning and mild collectivism.”⁵ In the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, he dreamed of a nation of farmers and hoped Malabar would become a model for others to follow. Ideally, he wanted a diversified, self-sufficient farm in which he and the hands all shared in the profits. That same year, The Rains Came, a book he had written in 1937, fueled his fame when the movie hit the silver screen with Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy. As more films...