Hedon History

James Heddon born in 1845 was the son of Richard Heddon. Richard Heddon born in 1818 was a immigrant from Devonshire, England.

The story begins in the late 1890's while waiting for a friend to go fishing, James Heddon carved his first frog lure from a piece of wood he picked up along the way. He fastened hooks to his hand carved frog and later that day he tossed it into the water and legend has it that he caught a large bass. This marked the beginning of the first bass lure for Heddon. It is said that he only carved frogs for himself and a few friends. These lures are extremely rare and only eight authentic hand carved James Heddon Frogs have been found.

It was in 1902 when James Heddon and his two sons, William Heddon and Charles Heddon decided that this could be a great business opportunity and began making lures in Mrs. Heddon's kitchen in Dowagiac, Michigan. In 1902 they were granted a patent for the Dowagiac Expert Lure. There is a story that James Heddon received a rush order of lures that had to ship the very next morning. Mrs. Heddon put them in her oven to speed up the drying process and the result was that the paint on the back of the lures cracked from the heat of the oven. It is believed that this was the beginning of the Green Fancy Back color.

It is reported that William made a $1,000 loan to his father to get the company started. William was the ambitious one of the family. He did the research and development work of and Charles was strong in the sales and marketing of their products.

In 1903 William Heddon and his wife Laura visited Ft. Pierce, Florida. Then they settled in the Jolly Palms Resort in Mohawk, Florida. There were hundreds of lakes near by and here they had the use of the resorts boathouse. They used the Boathouse as their factory and did their experimental and development work here. Laura Heddon was also a expert angler and they both worked as a team to develop new lures for the company. In 1909 they gave up the boathouse and built a cottage of their own in Minneola, Florida. They had a northern lure factory in Chetck, Wisconsin and in the summer months they continued to do their development work there.

By 1910 Heddon had a new factory in Dowagiac, Michigan. The factory was thirty feet wide by one hundred feet long. There was three stories along with a basement. It was a very well equipped factory that made Bait Casting Rods and Artificial Minnows. Charles Heddon was a successful sales person and by this time Heddon had salesmen in Canada distributing their products.

In 1911 James Heddon died. William continued to develop new lures and Charles became president of the Heddon company. This was known as the beginning of the "James Heddon's Sons Company". Charles Heddon died in 1941 and William Heddon died in 1955.

After Charles Heddon death on November 11, 1941 his son John Heddon took over as president of the company. In 1950 Heddon was one of the top company's in the lure industry and was producing 12,000 to 15,000 lures a day. Heddon's slogan was "Heddon Made - Well Make". This was printed on the cover of their lure boxes. In 1951 John Heddon sold "James Heddon's Sons" to the Murchinson family out of Texas. John Heddon eventually resigned and left the Heddon company in 1955. This ended the Heddon family's involvement in the company.

In 1959 the Heddon company was sold to the Daisy Manufacturing Company. In 1962 Cass Hough the president of Daisy became president of Daisy-Heddon. Throughout the 1960's Heddon products received more and more competition. In 1966 the Murchinson brothers set out looking for a buyer of the company and sold Daisy-Heddon to Victor Comptometer.

In the following ten years the Victor Comptometer Company began to fail because of bad management and in 1977 Victor Comptometer and its subsidiaries were sold to Walter Kiddle. One year later Kidde went to sell off James Heddon's Sons because its profit level did not meet the corporate standards. In 1978 John Marsman and Lous Wolfrom, two Heddon executives put together a group of investors and acquired Heddon from Walter Kiddle. Under the management of the new investors the Heddon company failed again to make required profits and after five years the Heddon company was once again up for sale.

EBSCO which stands for Elton B. Stephens Company out of Birminham, Alabama that owns the PRADCO company based in Fort Smith, Arkansas purchased Heddon in 1983. On August 9, 1984 the Dowagiac factory was permanently closed and it's doors locked for the last time. The EBSCO company decided to consolidated and move operations to the PRADCO facility at Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Bee 4 James Heddon	Heddon, Big Bud	Heddon Hardware
Heddon, Crab Wiggler	Heddon to PRADCO	Heddon Vamp/Vampire
Heddon - WW II "E" Award	Heddon #100 Minnow	Heddon #150 Minnow
Heddon - Expert #200 Series	Non Heddon Company's	Heddon Company History
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