Bizarre History Of Animals Being Town Mayors

Every time a town declares a dog or cat as its new mayor, the media never fails to feature it, and with good reason. No matter how many times the public hears about it, the notion of an animal holding any sort of public office will always sound novel enough to be newsworthy. 

Obviously, these paw-liticians don't actually have the power to make decisions for the townsfolk. These elections are almost always ceremonial in nature, typically part of fundraising efforts or awareness campaigns. They also typically happen in unincorporated areas or places that aren't officially part of any city that often don't have true elected officials (via Neighborhoods.com). In reality, no one really expects Spot to approve the construction of new roads, Snowball to lower taxes, or Mr. Cuddles to solve water shortages. (Though admittedly, it's hilarious to imagine an entire town getting so sick of ineffective human leadership that they'd be convinced that a pet could do a better job.)

Furthermore, animals get elected as town mayors far more frequently than most realize. Here are 12 noteworthy instances of four-legged friends winning the paw-pular vote.

It's not easy to pinpoint the first time a non-human won any sort of government position — though a goat that became a city councilor in Brazil in the 1920s is a strong candidate — but one of the most well-known examples is Bosco Ramos, a black Labrador-Rottweiler who became Sunol, California's first "Re-pup-lican" mayor (via Mercury News).

In 1981, the denizens of this unincorporated area picked Bosco over two human candidates. Legend has it that Bosco's candidacy hinged on a bet made by his owner, Brad Leber. Allegedly, Leber asserted that his furry pal could beat his drinking pals in an honest-to-God election. Not everyone found Bosco's victory charming, though: A Chinese newspaper ran a 1990 article about how Sunol's dog mayor was proof of a failed democratic system. However, this only boosted Bosco's international popularity, to the point where Chinese students invited the paw-litician to join them in a pro-democracy rally in front of San Francisco's Chinese Embassy (via NBC Bay Area).

The beloved mayor had a bit of a reputation when it came to salacious relations; people even joked that Bosco was "related to every dog in town." Still, everyone in Sunol loved Bosco, who held the position for 13 years. After Bosco's second owner made the tough decision to lay him to rest, they built a bronze bust in his honor (via Atlas Obscura). Perhaps his campaign slogan promising bones, cats, and fire hydrants really resonated with them.

The unincorporated community called Rabbit Hash has had an electoral history as curious as its name (which allegedly references how early settlers cooked hundreds of rabbits that came from a nearby riverbank). According to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the townsfolk have been holding fundraising mayoral "elections" since 1998. The alleged brainchild of a local man named Don Claire (via NBC News), these events are actually fundraising activities; voters can choose their mayor for a dollar, which goes to various restoration and rehabilitation projects in the community.

Their first mayor, mut Goofy Borneman, was only able to serve for three years. After Goofy's death in 2001, a black Labrador named Junior stepped up to the challenge, becoming the town's second mayor. Junior became a bit of a celebrity because of his election, landing himself a TV show on Animal Planet in the process.

2008 saw the beginning of the rein, er, reign of border collie Lucy Lou, who ran and won against a cat, a donkey, an opossum, and 10 other canine candidates. Lucy Lou was the town's first female mayor; she served for eight years before being replaced by a pleasant-looking pit bull named Brynneth Pawltro (via WCPO). And in 2020, a French Bulldog named Wilbur won the position.

On June 6, 2011, a benevolent brown Swiss bovine blogged about her bid for the position of mayor of Eastsound, Washington. In her letter, published in The Island's Sounder, April wrote about her "steak" in the election, which was part of an annual fundraiser for a local preschool center. Apparently, April already ran for the position twice and lost to dogs both times (via Simply Orcas).

This time, however, April won against six opponents for the position, helping to raise almost $5,000 for the school's infant and preschool care initiatives. April, who was reportedly adopted from the San Juan County Fair in the 1990s, "mooved" the hearts of more than half of Eastsound's voters during the course of her five-week campaign (via The Island's Sounder).

Sadly, April passed away a little over two months after the end of her year-long term. The locals honored the passing of their moo-ing mayor with a small ceremony in the field that the "no bull" mayor used to occupy.

The unincorporated town of Idyllwild in Riverside County, California, has a mayor with an indefinite tenure — and interestingly enough, a single bloodline has held the position ever since it became vacant.

Back in 2012, the townsfolk decided to hold a fundraiser election for a local animal rescue nonprofit organization, with votes costing a dollar each (via Travel and Leisure). A golden retriever named Maximus "Max" Mighty-Dog Mueller won by an astonishing margin. This was mainly because of his owners' sizable contribution but also partly because of the dog's popularity among the voters. Max served for a term and a half before dying of old age. At that point, his humans made it their mission to track down Max's descendants, hoping that one of them could assume the position.

As luck would have it, they managed to bring home three, including the current mayor (and mayor-for-life), Max II. The new dog's reign is far from a dictatorship, though, because the townsfolk actually cast their votes for him as their permanent mayor. A highly visible figure, Max II not only graces public events, healthcare institutions, and schools, but also meets tourists by schedule through his official website. According to The Guardian, Mayor Max II has a simple mission: "To make the world a better place by conveying unconditional love and doing as many good deeds for others as possible."

For the people of Cormorant Village in Minnesota, the best leader they've ever had — and probably the best leader in the entirety of the United States, based solely on his approval ratings (via the American Kennel Club) — was a Great Pyrenees named Duke who served not one, not two, but four terms as mayor. Perhaps even more absurd is the fact that even his human opponent, a store owner named Richard Sherbrook, voted for Duke instead of himself (via ABC News).

Duke first won the mayoral race, which was a dollar-per-vote fundraiser event, when he was 7 years old in 2014. The locals paid him in dog food and celebrated his victory with a five-hour grooming session (via CBS Minnesota). In an interview with ABC News, Sherbrook described Duke as an avid hunter and revealed that the main reason why the townsfolk voted the white, shaggy dog into office was that they thought having a canine mayor would be "pretty cool."

Apparently, Duke did such a good job as mayor that he was re-elected in 2015, 2016, and 2017. In fact, during his third term, the only vote he didn't get went to his girlfriend Lassie (via Huffpost). Sadly, Duke passed away in 2019, a year after he retired from public office.

Back in 2014, the citizens of Divide, a mountain town in Colorado, were faced with a seemingly tough decision. They had to choose their new mayor, and it came down to a cat named Buster, a donkey named Herbie, a hedgehog named Blackberry, a mustang named Gracie, a wolf named Keyni, and a number of canine candidates (via Dogster). Given the result of the votes, it truly was a tough race. A search-and-rescue bloodhound named Pa Kettle emerged as the victor, amassing 2,387 votes; for reference, Kenyi managed to rake in 2,332 for second place.

Like the other small towns, Divide has no legitimate mayor. This opened the doors for a local animal shelter to hold a fundraising election each year. The voter turnout had historically been quite impressive, with the organization successfully raising over $10,000 during previous elections. The 2014 election was no different, prompting almost 9,000 registrants to pledge their votes after a brief campaign period.

Pa Kettle reportedly owed his victory to three simple things: the fact that he had a last name, a verifiable birth certificate, and "a real job" (via the Irish Mirror).

Most of these four-legged candidates won their respective bids as mayors of their towns. Frida the chihuahua is a bit different, though, because of one special reason: For an entire working day in 2014, the diminutive dog "became" mayor of not just a small town but of an entire city in California (via NBC Bay Area).

The special "Mayor for a Day" election was actually an auction held to celebrate the silver anniversary of San Francisco's publicly funded animal shelter, the Department of Animal Care and Control. As Frida's owner was the highest bidder, the chihuahua won the title, receiving gifts from the city and going all around the Bay Area on a guided tour as part of the benefits package (via the Toronto Sun).

Frida had one of the shortest reigns of any animal mayor, though, because her term ended at 4 p.m. on the same day.

As a small, unincorporated village in Michigan with around 300 or so denizens, Omena doesn't really have (or need) an official mayor. That hasn't stopped the population from having a bit of fundraising (and fun) each year, though — and one of their most memorable elections happened in 2018, when a cat named Sweet Tart McKee ran against another feline, a chicken, a goat, 13 dogs, and even a peacock for the position of town mayor (via The Kansas City Star).

According to an article published by the Detroit Free Press, the tradition of electing non-humans as Omena's mayor started in 2008 as an initiative of the Omena Historical Society. Similar to the animal mayor elections in other towns, the organization collects a dollar per vote, which it puts into its endowment fund.

The 2018 election wasn't Sweet Tart's first taste of public service, though: After serving on the Omena Village Council for three years, she held the position of vice mayor for another three before becoming the mayor (via CNN).

Remember Mayor-for-Life Max from Idyllwild, California? As it turns out, the caramel-colored canine's political career inspired another dog's owner in a state nearly 750 miles away.

"I saw how much love Max brought to the town of Idyllwild and that sparked the idea in my head," shared Dustin Schaefer, the public relations and social media manager of Loveland Ski Resort in Colorado, in an interview with 5280 Magazine. Schaefer's brilliant idea? Have the ski resort's official mascot Parker the Snow Dog "run" for the position of honorary mayor of the Territorial Charter Municipality of Georgetown in 2019.

As the face (and paws) of the ski resort, Parker, a Bernese mountain dog, was already a well-known figure in his own right. According to the Indian Express, Parker even made frequent appearances on television whenever the Denver Broncos would play football. It's hardly surprising, then, that the celebrity canine won the hearts and "votes" of the townsfolk. As honorary mayor, Parker's owners make sure that he's present at official functions. The therapy dog also frequently interacts with people across Georgetown, just like a good paw-litician would.

Among all the mayors featured on this list, Talkeetna, Alaska's feline town mayor Stubbs "served" the longest: 20 years, to be exact.

The most popular version of the tail, er, tale of Stubbs rise to power goes like this, according to Smithsonian Magazine. In the late '90s, the disillusioned townsfolk of Talkeetna were unhappy with their human options for town mayor in the elections. Thus, they staged a quiet protest by writing in the name of a cat living in the town's general store. While this isn't accurate at all — since Talkeetna is a historical district, the town has no actual mayor — the townsfolk were more than happy to stick to this story, as it brought in massive media attention to the small town. Stubbs also attracted tons of curious tourists to Talkeetna, all of whom wanted to meet the famous feline face to face.

During his nearly two-decade term, Stubbs "ran" things around town from the comfort of the general-store-slash-mayor's-office (via CNN). Unfortunately, a canine attack in 2013 may have significantly contributed to Stubbs' shortened lifespan. The cat mayor recovered from his injuries (which included a fractured breastbone, deep wounds, and a punctured lung), but died in his sleep four years later.

Elections aren't just for deciding who gets to be in power. As the town of Fair Haven in Vermont proved, it can also help children learn the importance of performing their civic duties.

In an interview with WQAD, Fair Haven manager Joseph Gunter explained the origin of the town's yearly honorary mayoral elections. At the beginning, the event was meant to raise funds to repair the town playground. The good-humored citizens of Fair Haven decided in 2018 that a goat could be the greatest-of-all-time mayor of their town, and so they elected Lincoln, a 3-year-old billy goat, to hold the honorary position. With his appearances at town events during his tenure, Lincoln managed to raise a staggering $10,000. His successor, however, did even better: Murfee the spaniel raised double the amount in 2020 (via AP News).

Aside from raising funds, the yearly elections have also helped parents raise their kids well. According to CNN, nearly half of the 664 voters in Fair Haven's 2020 elections were elementary school kids. Given how Lincoln decided that his first order of business in office should be doing his business on the floor of his office, it's fortunate that Fair Haven's children decided to follow their parents' examples, and not the good mayor's.

The small unincorporated community of Lajitas, Texas, has had a string of interesting mayors since 1986 (via Houstonia): three generations of goats, all named Clay Henry, who were absolutely fond of human beverages. Clay Henry I began his time as mayor after winning an election sponsored by Walter Mischer, the big-time entrepreneur who owned the town. Aside from being an elected official, the other thing Clay Henry I was well-known for was his love for beer. 

The goat mayor's tenure was tragically cut short, however, when his son, Clay Henry II, ended up headbutting him to death in a duel over a nanny. The younger goat inherited his father's seat and eventually had a kid, Clay Henry III. In 2000, Clay Henry III ran against Clyde the canine and a "wooden Indian" — and won, unsurprisingly. Sadly, his tenure was far from peaceful. A man from Val Verde County named Jim Bob Hargrove felt deeply offended that the townsfolk were wasting excellent beer on a goat. In a rage, he castrated the goat mayor, stuffing his testicles in a refrigerator (via the New York Times).

These days, one can supposedly find the mounted remains of Clay Henry I at the Starlight Theater Saloon in Terlingua, Texas — a lifelike reminder of Lajitas' world-famous, beer-drinking goat mayor.