After the blood-soaked horrors of World War I, men, to say the least, were not alright on a spiritual or existential level. This could explain why a bunch of Dallas men got tired of swapping traumatic war stories and decided they needed to inject a little frivolity into their male-bonding. With fabulous hats.

Thus, April Fool’s Day 1919, the Bonehead Club was born.

A fraternal order of merry pranksters in bowler hats, the Boneheads dedicated themselves to nonsense in the purest and most audacious manner, declaring with Dadaist fervor:

“OUR AIM: NOTHING, OUR PURPOSE, NOTHING, OUR INSPIRATION: NOTHING, MOTTO: TO LEARN MORE AND MORE ABOUT LESS AND LESS UNTIL, EVENTUALLY, WE SHALL KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT NOTHING!”

There is no president. There are all vice presidents. However, a Big Chief is selected, along with a Scribbler (to take notes) and a Money Grabber (to take money). 

Despite their commitment to nothingness, the Boneheads sure were active in their community, providing local color, amusement, and annoyance throughout Dallas for decades. Whether it’s disrupting festivities at the luxurious Adolphus Hotel or Sheraton-Dallas, treating some pooches to fine dining, “bugging” a convention for Texas Pest Control, or kidnapping the SMU Homecoming Court, the Boneheads never missed an opportunity to crash a party or make a spectacle. They were most known for their annual topsy-turvy “closing” of the State Fair of Texas on Opening Day in a comically futile attempt to keep the influx of tourists –especially Oklahomans– out!

Part of their unplanned plans, their anti-agenda agenda, their charterless charter, involved thumbing their noses at “the pretensions of presumptuous people” by showing how ludicrous public policy could be. Stunts included parading a “mermaid” and caravan of boats through the flooded streets of Dallas in response to a proposal to make the Trinity River more navigable —

— peddling their own ‘art‘ in response to exorbitantly priced modern art —

–and “beautifying” downtown Dallas by planting trees in the middle of the busy streets.

Each year of lighthearted tomfoolery culminated in the annual Bonehead of the Year award and banquet to “honor” someone that the club, in all of their wisdom, deem America’s biggest Bonehead. Past winners have included:

• the 1963 Navy Football team for being crazy enough to play the undefeated Texas Longhorns…who would win their first national title that year
• Minnesota Viking Jim Marshall for infamously recovering a fumble and running the wrong direction (in a twist of fate, or possible stunt by the Boneheads, Marshall got on the wrong plane on his way to claim the award!)
• Coors Beer Company president William Coors, for designing the ecological but “confusing” press-tab cans of beers
• The National Farm Strike Movement, for hosting an extravagant fundraising event at Texas Stadium which was a major flop
• 13-year old Andrea Whiteman, who inexplicably managed to succeed in the Cub Scouts with honors, despite the fact that the Scouts didn’t accept girls at the time. The Boneheads couldn’t resist celebrating such absurdity
• The Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. The award was accepted by Howard J. Ruff, the pro-hard money financial writer of How to Prosper During the Coming Band Years
• The Hunt Brothers, whose attempt to corner the silver market led to losing a billion dollars on “Silver Thursday”
• Racer Bobby Unser for his controversial win at the 1981 Indianapolis 500
• Larry Walters a.k.a. “Lawnchair Larry” who gained national attention after flying on a lawnchair tied to 42 weather balloons
• Billionaire businessman and politician Ross Perot for resigning from General Motors and waiting four weeks to cash his $700 million payout

Club activity has significantly waned, but for over a century, the foolhardy, dapper buffoons of the “Mother Club of the World” have brought a whimsical bout of charm and cheek to the DFW, in a zany, ongoing quest to convince everyone NOT wearing a quirky hat to stop taking life so seriously.

Check out The Portal to Texas History to learn more!