Heddon fishing lures was created by James Heddon, (beekeeper) who is credited with the invention of the first wooden artificial fishing lures 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 They were originally made by hand in the Heddon family kitchen in Dowagiac, Michigan.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. In their growth years, the company also made rods, reels and other peripheral fishing gear.

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. Many of the company's original lures are still made by EBSCO under their original names, though the list below shows the original run of the named lures in the company's catalog. Many of these lures have been resurrected by later owners, and are still made, such as the "Lucky 13", the "Zara Spook", the "Meadow Mouse" and the "River Runt" all of which remain popular with fisherman more than a century after their introduction.