William Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger

Heffelfinger lived his last years at Live Oak Farm near Blessing, home of his wife, Grace Pierce, the daughter of rancher Jonathan Edwards Pierce. Before Texas he was a Minnesota Republican: delegate to the national conventions of 1904 and 1908, Hennepin County commissioner from 1924 to 1948, and a losing congressional candidate in 1930. He played in charity games into his mid-sixties. He died at the farm on April 2, 1954, and is buried at Hawley Cemetery. Accounts disagree on when the couple moved there.

What the plaque says

William Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger WILLIAM WALTER "PUDGE" HEFFELFINGER "Pudge" Heffelfinger was born in 1867 in Minneapolis and began playing football at age 15. He organized a team at his high school and played four seasons at Yale on the varsity team where, in 1890, he conceived the idea of the pulling guard play. "Pudge" also played baseball, track and rowed on the Yale crew. He is considered the first professional football player in the U.S., being paid $500 to play in Pittsburgh in 1892. He coached college teams in three states, taking Yale football style to his California team. Heffelfinger married Matagorda county native Grace Harriett Pierce in 1901, and they had three children. "Pudge" was inducted into the college football hall of fame in 1951. He passed away in 1954 at his home near blessing. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 32 mi
  The last screw-pile lighthouse of the Texas coast, brought ashore at Port Lavaca, a town founded by refugees from Linnville, the port Buffalo Hump's Comanches burned in August 1840.

More markers nearby

• Deming's Bridge Community — steps away
• Old Hawley Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• Blessing Library Association — 3.1 mi
• St. Peter's Catholic Church — 3.1 mi