You've Goat to Be Kidding Me

A Texas town has a fascinating mayoral history.

Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. Today, we’re heading to a small town in West Texas with a delightful political lineage.

Clay Henry III enjoying some suds. (12-Foot Hedgehog Productions/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The town of Lajitas, Texas has had multiple beer-drinking goat mayors named Clay Henry.

In the summer of 2020, I took a road trip to West Texas and White Sands in New Mexico. So many things were still closed because of the pandemic, so visiting massive outdoor areas with nary a soul around seemed like a great idea.

If you have never driven across the western part of Texas, you are in for a treat.

I’m sorry, that was a typo. You are in for long, empty stretches of desert.

Here’s a bonus fun fact: If you drove from Houston to Los Angeles (a city notably in California, three states away from Texas), you’d hit the halfway point and still be in Texas. It’s a big state.

One of the cities along the way is Lajitas, a small town with a population of about 100 people. It’s near Big Bend and the ghost town of Terlingua, which has all kinds of fun art shrines like this:

Check yourself before you T-Rex yourself.

Back in 1986, a Houston businessman named Walter M. Mischer owned Lajitas. He invited a group of fellow politicians and businessfolk to join him for a trip. Wouldn’t you know it, a snowstorm overtook the desert. Being stuck in the town, the group headed to the Thirsty Goat Saloon.

Mischer had a friend named Tommy Steele—who, as far as we know, never worked in the steel industry, and that’s a shame. Mischer’s crew decided to elect Steele as mayor of Lajitas. But a local named Bill Ivey took offense to that.

Ivey and his family had lived in Lajitas for decades and multiple generations. And now someone from Houston was going to come in and take over? Nay.

Ivey said his goat could do a comparable job, and soon, Steele and Clay Henry the goat were facing off on the ballot.

Steele won the first go around, but Clay Henry had the last laugh—or the last maaaaa. He earned a landslide victory when the two were up for re-election a few years later.

Remember the Thirsty Goat Saloon from a few paragraphs ago? I sure hope so, or else I need to do a better job here.

Anyway, the saloon was named in honor of Clay Henry, who could down a bottle of booze in under 10 seconds. Clay Henry taught the beer-guzzling trick to his son, Clay Henry Jr.

One day, the two goats began fighting. As the town tells it, they were both interested in the same female goat. Just like some human men believe, they thought defeating another suitor in physical combat would win the lady’s heart.

Instead, Clay Jr. killed his father and became mayor. Do we have a coup on our hooves?

Clay Jr.’s fame perhaps even surpassed that of his father. He drank 35 to 40 beers a day, appeared on a Sally Jessy Raphael TV segment, and played a part on “The Streets of Laredo.”

Lajitas has since had a Clay III—who defeated a wooden statue and Clyde the dog to take office—and a Clay IV.

The third Clay had somewhat of a grim fate; he was castrated by someone who thought beer was being wasted on a goat. Clay IV is a teetotaler.

We might not see another goat mayor in the city, but what a legacy the Clay Henry crew has left over the years. Let’s cheers to them!