Legacies on the Mound: Black Baseball Players in North Dakota History

Baseball historian and author Phil S. Dixon will present “Legacies on the Mount: Baseball Players in North Dakota History” at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, July 19, at the 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse State Historic Site in Jamestown. The free public presentation and book signing is a partnership with Bismarck Historical Society.

The presentation commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Bismarck Churchills winning the first National Baseball Congress National Tournament in Wichita, Kansas. The Bismarck Churchills were fierce rivals with Jamestown. They regularly played Valley City and other North Dakota and Manitoba teams. Dixon will highlight careers of notable players who competed in North Dakota, including National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Satchel Paige who played ball at Jamestown’s McElroy Park, now Jack Brown Stadium.

A co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Dixon has spent more than 30 years documenting African American sports history. He is the author of nine books and received the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book in 1992. Dixon also earned the Society of American Baseball Researchers’ MacMillan Award for excellence in historical research.

For more information, contact Site Supervisor Kyle Nelson, [email protected] or 701.328.1883. The Stutsman County Courthouse is a state historic site managed by the State Historical Society of North Dakota. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment. Summer hours are daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Memorial Day through Labor Day. Find more programs sponsored by the State Historical Society at history.nd.gov/events.