For 100 years, visitors to the South Cemetery on top of South Main Street in Butler have walked past an unassuming, rectangular gravestone chiseled with only the name George F. Hepler and the dates of his far too short life.

Few present-day visitors glancing down on the grass and dirt partially obscuring the simple marker would ever guess it marks the grave of a hero whose act of bravery saved the lives of two small boys, costing him his own life just a few short weeks after his high school graduation in 1924.

Hepler’s heroic act would posthumously earn him the bronze Carnegie Medal for Extraordinary Acts of Heroism. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission medal, started by Pittsburgh steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, has been awarded since 1905 to those individuals in the United States and Canada who risk death or serious physical injury to an extraordinary degree saving or attempting to save the lives of others.

George F. Hepler had just celebrated his 20th birthday a few days before walking across the stage to receive his high school diploma at the Butler Senior High School on North Street in downtown Butler at the beginning of June 1924. Hepler was leaving behind his stellar high school athletic career, which saw the 5 foot, 10 inch, 145-pound athlete earn letters in football, basketball and baseball.

The star fullback/halfback on the gridiron and pivotman on the hardwood appears in his school’s yearbook team photos as an athlete possessing piercing eyes projecting proud and intense determination and wiry strength.

The gifted athlete stepped out of the front door of his parents’ 518 East Fulton St. home on June 27, 1924, a few minutes after Butler’s church bells chimed 12 times. He walked across the beautiful Victorian home’s wraparound porch and down its wooden steps, leading to seven stone steps down to the sidewalk, where he crossed to the street’s southern side.

As Hepler headed east toward Second Street, his future plans to continue his athletic career in college were likely on his mind. Fate would have different plans.

The noontime sun was directly overhead when Butler’s 37-year-old future mayor, George M. Thompson, parked the family car along the western curb of his Second Street three-story frame house, turning his wheels toward the curb that stood about 240 feet uphill from the intersection with East Fulton. The father of three pulled the vehicle's parking brake to prevent the sedan careening down the steep red brick street.

While their father was inside the home completing an errand, 4-year-old George, Jr and 2 ½ year-old Bobby wandered into the parked car. The boys played with the steering wheel and released the brake.

At 12:15 p.m. George Hepler was just a few feet from meeting Second Street when he heard the screams of neighbors standing outside their homes witnessing the two little Thompson boys in a driverless car headed down the brick street.

As it picked up speed, its right front wheel scraped against the curb. Old enough to sense their impending doom, but too young to know how to stop it, the boys let out the cries of frightened terror.

Hepler sprang into action. Reaching Second Street, he sprinted uphill to intercept the runaway sedan.

Hepler saw the car veering onto and across the driveway of Abel Fisher’s home on the southwest corner of Second and East Fulton Street and onto the front lawn.

As if jumping over a tackler on the football field, Hepler leapt through the air and landed on the car’s driver’s side running board. Although he had rarely driven a car himself, he knew to try to reach inside the open driver’s side window to pull the brake while grabbing the steering wheel. The runaway car veered across the Fisher home front yard, approaching the top of a 4-foot high stone wall sitting above East Fulton Street.

“Hep,” as he was known by his classmates, had contributed on a page of the Butler High Magnet (yearbook) his “Senior Will,” bequeathing his “stubborn mind to anyone who can change it.”

It was this stubbornness that likely made it impossible for him to jump off the machine without trying everything in his power to stop it from flying over the approaching wall with two helpless children inside.

The few seconds of opportunity to stop a tragedy had vanished. The car, with Helpler still balancing on the running board and the two frightened children inside, went airborne at an angle over the wall.

It hit the sidewalk below and overturned on its driver’s side. It slid down a small grassy hillside and came to a stop facing west on the bricks of East Fulton Street.

The lower half of Hepler’s body lay pinned and crushed beneath the weight of the 3,500-pound sedan.

Former Butler Mayor Joseph Heinenman and other neighbors quickly reached the scene and lifted the wreckage just enough for Heinenman’s wife to crawl underneath and pull the unconscious “Hep'' out from underneath. The children were able to crawl out the front window on their own and were miraculously unhurt.

Five minutes passed before the former high school athlete regained consciousness and was able to talk. Although in great pain, the 20-year-old never complained while attempting to raise his head and arms. One of the neighbors cleaned and bathed the deep gash in his forehead while everyone anxiously waited for the arrival of several doctors and an ambulance.

The rescue vehicle rushed Hepler to the yellow brick Butler General Hospital at the end of the South Main Street Viaduct. The doctors, surgeons and nurses worked all day and through the night trying to save the fearless young man’s life.

The second oldest of the 10 children of Hardee and Catherine Hepler fought with every ounce of strength and determination for 17 hours to win a fight far more challenging than anything he had ever experienced while playing sports. Sadly, it was a contest he would not win.

According to his death certificate, Helpler died at 5:20 a.m. on June 25, 1924, the day after his heroic deed, due to internal injuries received after being crushed from the weight of the overturned Thompson family car.

Five days later, “Hep’s” remains were returned to his East Fulton Street home so those who loved him could say goodbye. With his family and friends gathered inside, the brave young man’s funeral was conducted by Dr. Samuel C. Gamble, pastor of the 2nd Presbyterian Church on the Diamond, where George had been a member.

In late January 1925, due to the efforts of Butler’s Kiwanis Club, Hardee Hepler received official notice from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission that his late son was to be recognized a hero and awarded a bronze medal for his act of unselfish bravery in his attempt to save the lives of George and Bobby Thompson. The grieving, but proud father agreed to accept the reward for his deceased son.

Many residents of Butler before the tragic accident, may have considered the young man who walked out the front door of his East Fulton Street home on that summer day of 1924 a hero for what he had accomplished on the football field, basketball court or baseball diamond, but after that day they understood the meaning of a true hero. Hepler had given his life in an attempt to give two, small innocent boys theirs.

George McLean Thompson Jr. and Robert Miller Thompson both grew up to graduate from Butler High School and to walk across the same stage as the man who had saved their lives. George Jr. attended Kiskiminetas Preparatory School in Saltsburg, attended Grove City College, married twice and was the treasurer of the Triangle Gasoline Company. He died following heart surgery at the young age of 31 on April 30, 1951.

Robert attended Princeton University, served as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator during World War II, married three times and had four children. He worked for General Motors until starting an insurance agency in Forest Hills near Pittsburgh. In the late 1980s, along with his son, he started a very successful software company that was acquired by the Hartford Insurance Company. He died on March 6, 2018, at the age of 96.

Bill May of Butler is a historian, speaker and tour guide.