American Legion Hudgeons Post 230

Thomas Eli Hudgeons went down with the troopship Tuscania. The Anchor Line liner left Hoboken on January 24, 1918, with 2,013 American soldiers and 384 crew. On the evening of February 5 the German submarine UB-77 fired two torpedoes between Islay and Northern Ireland, and the second hit. The ship sank in about four hours. About 210 troops and crew died. Royal Navy destroyers rescued many survivors, and bodies washed ashore on Islay and were buried there. A memorial tower was unveiled on the Mull of Oa in 1919.

What the plaque says

American Legion Hudgeons Post 230 Following World War I, local veterans of Hallettsville created the Hudgeons Post 230 in 1920. They wanted to serve fellow veterans and the community through an American Legion Post. The branch was named Hudgeons Post in honor of Mr. And Mrs. Eli Hudgeons who lived in Hallettsville and both died during WWI. Thomas Eli Hudgeons registered for the draft in 1917 at age 19 and married Margaret Singleton just two weeks before his departure for France. Thomas died on February 5, 1918 when the transport ship, Tuscania, was torpedoed by a German submarine. Margaret Hudgeons died January 24, 1919, of pneumonia while she was a Red Cross nurse in San Antonio. The Hudgeons Post 230 was open for membership to all who served between 1917 and 1918 in the U.S. Army, navy, or marine corps. The dues were 50 cents per year. The post rented three rooms in the J.H. Appelt Building above the post office in Hallettsville. In 1958, the city leased the Recreation Hall, built by the National Youth Administration during the Great Depression, to the post and, in 1963, the Post purchased the Recreation Hall. In 1965, the hall burned down, along with the Post records. The current American Legion Hall was built in 1965 following the fire. The Hudgeons Post continues to improve conditions for veterans and citizens of Lavaca County. They follow the four pillars of the American Legion: veterans, defense, Americanism and youth. The post has been very active in the community, providing scholarships and supplying finances to improve public spaces around the city. The post continues to thrive under their motto: in peace as in war - we serve. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lavaca County Courthouse — 0.5 mi
  A limestone Romanesque courthouse of 1897-99 on the square of a town founded by a widow trader, in a county seat that once printed the Socialist Party's state paper.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 13 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• St. Mary's Church of the Assumption (Praha) — 17 mi
  The mother parish of the Czech settlements around Flatonia, a stone-fronted church of 1895 whose ceiling Gottfried Flury turned into a turquoise garden, with an August 15 feast since 1855.
• Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church (High Hill) — 18 mi
  A red brick Gothic Revival church of 1906 in a German farm settlement, where two San Antonio painters spent 1912 faking marble columns and stone vaults on wood.

More markers nearby

• Richardson Chapel United Methodist Church — steps away
• 50th Anniversary of Battle of Galveston — 0.5 mi
• First National Bank of Hallettsville — 0.5 mi
• Hallettsville — 0.6 mi