Clubhouse Trailer CompanySafety. Efficiency. Innovation.
Clubhouse Trailer Company
Before there was a purpose built shop, or 5 types of builds,, or a name that band directors across the country now recognize on sight, there was Bulldog 1 — the semi trailer we built for the Edmond Memorial High School band program. It didn’t come out of a factory. It came out of a small, tucked away shop, belonging to Jeff Hadley. A dedicated group of band parents decided their kids’ equipment deserved better than what they had.
We didn’t start with a blank slate. Bulldog 1 started its life as a moving trailer for A-1 Freeman Moving & Storage in Oklahoma City. The trailer, a 1988 Matlock, was beyond its useful years for Freeman, and, without knowing better, was purchased to be the start of Memorial’s newest trailer in their fleet.
What followed was thousands of man-hours spanning 2009 into 2010 from a crew of volunteers: parents and siblings de-identifying the trailer, sanding, cutting, and prepping the trailer for its new paint job. Nights and weekends, all in a secret hideaway, Jeff “secret Clubhouse”. Nobody involved had built a marching band trailer before. A lot of what we now consider standard practice at Clubhouse Trailers, we figured out for the first time on this build.
We made mistakes in that first build. Each one of those mistakes became a lesson, and every lesson became something we built into the next trailer, and the one after that. And while the ingredients to make the end result have changed drastically, the end result is still the same; a community showpiece, meant to instill pride in the students, while providing safe and efficient storage and transportation of equipment.
Bulldog 1 helped us create the industry that we now know as marching logistics. Features that have never before been seen on band trailers, and now are standard across the industry.
Here’s just a few:
In the early formative years of Clubhouse Trailers, Bulldog 1 and the subsequent trailers taught us things we didn’t know we needed to learn. Our process has evolved greatly since then. Today’s trailer refurbishment and build-out process is far more thorough, which means the trailers built now are made to last even longer. The materials we used today, even down to the plywood for the 2nd floor, has evolved from a simple “Pick it up at the store” to “we have to order by the bunk, 48 sheets and delivered to Oklahoma once a month.”
In 2023, Bartlesville received a bond to buy a brand new Kentucky Trailer to replace their original trailer, a mid 90’s Kentucky, #002 that we built in 2011!
In the fall of 2026 after marching season, Bixby’s trailer (#003, 2012 build) is coming back to The Clubhouse for a refurbishment, features upgrades, and branding updates.
