James Heddon & Sons


Heddon is a brand of artificial fishing lures created by James Heddon, who is credited with the invention of the first artificial fishing lures made of wood in the late 1890s.

The Heddon Company was founded in 1902 to sell the lures. They were originally made by hand in the Heddon family kitchen in Dowagiac, Michigan. By 1910 they had a sales distributor in Canada and a new factory in Dowagiac. By 1950 the Heddon brand name was well known and they were producing over 12,000 lures a day.

Citing increased competition and wanting to end the business during a profitable time, the Heddon family sold their business to the Murchinson family in 1955. Since then the company has been sold multiple times, finally ending up as part of EBSCO.