Frank Higgs

Frank “Dude” Higgs (b. 1904; d. 1945) was born in Grandview Heights; his family owned the home at this tour stop on Lincoln Road until 1940. Known as “Junior” during his time at Grandview Heights High School, Higgs served as Booster president, played football, tennis, basketball, golf, and baseball.   

Despite failing out of Hanover College, Higgs wound up at The Ohio State University where he earned a varsity letter in golf and officially donned the nickname “Dude,” given to him for his flashy attire. He graduated from OSU in 1932. 

While studying at OSU, Higgs struck up a friendship with future cartoonist Milton Caniff, creator of the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. The action-adventure comic strip ran from 1934 to 1973, and was read by by 31 million newspaper subscribers. Higgs was used as the model for the series’ pilot Dude Hennick, from which Caniff borrowed Higgs’ heavy brows and close-cropped hair. 

Dude Hennick (left) in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates was the first character the cartoonist Caniff based on a real-life figure. 

With the success of Hennick, Caniff developed several more cartoon characters based on people he knew. Caniff retired the character Hennick as a tribute upon Higgs' untimely death in 1945.  

After college, Higgs earned his Army wings in 1935 and spent the late 1930s in China training pilots. He later flew for the China National Aviation Corporation from 1937 to 1945. During the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, around the same time as Pearl Harbor, Higgs was the first to fly out of Kai Tak airfield (now Hong Kong International Airport), taking evacuees to safety by night. While with CNAC, he transported many dignitaries including the head of the Chinese army, Chiang Kai-Shek, and his wife.. In 1942, he flew Clare Boothe, a correspondent for Life magazine, out of Burma; she photographed him outside of his plane and called him an “extremely gallant fellow.” Higgs is said, by one count, to have logged 6,000 flying hours and survived 20 air raids. 

Frank Higgs in his Chinese National Aviation Corporation uniform.  

On October 14, 1944, Higgs married Diana Menzies in Calcutta, and the two spent their honeymoon in Kashmir. The marriage was not to last, though, as just days after their first anniversary, October 20, 1945, Higgs’ plane crashed during a mountainous flight in China, killing all on board. 

Hennick's Restaurant at 1824 N. High St. in the 1920s. Source: Ohio History Connection. 

Hennick's was a popular hangout on OSU campus. It began around 1904 as a retail store offering candy, sodas, etc., and eventually became the go-to spot to meet after OSU home football games. Cartoonist Caniff adopted the restaurant's name for the last name of his Dude Hennick character. The restaurant closed in 1951.    

Higgs' family owned the property at 1219 Lincoln Rd. from the early 1900s until 1940.