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🌾 The History of Baseball in Wichita

🌾 The History of Baseball in Wichita

It's been around a long while

Landon Huslig
April 09, 2025

TOGETHER WITH

Good morning, Wichita!

Tomorrow is the day. What day you ask? Scroll to the bottom to find out!

Let's get to it!

- Landon Huslig

Together with The City of Wichita

It is hard to stay on top of all the news in Wichita.

I hope we are part of the solution for that.

But the City of Wichita puts out a ton of info that is hard even for us to cover, so why not get it straight from the source?

The History of Baseball in Wichita

The Wichita Wind Surge officially kicked off their 5th season with the first home game last night.

Wichita has been a hot bed for baseball for a long time between the many variations of minor league ball, Wichita State Shockers, and the NBC World Series.

We wanted to highlight and honor a few of the past teams and give a refresher for the upcoming season.

Let’s kick it off with a blast from the past.

(If you want an actual deep dive into baseball, check out the book Baseball in Wichita by Bob Rives.)

The Early Days (1887 - 1950)

Ackerman Island used to host Wichita Baseball Games

The first pro team in Wichita was the Wichita Braves who started in 1887.

This didn’t last too long and although baseball in town has come and gone in waves, it always finds its way back home.

The Wichita Jobbers played from 1905 to 1911 in the Western Association (then Western League) with the 1907 Jobbers being ranked among the top 100 greatest minor league teams of all time (#41 to be exact).

Midway through the 1911 season, the team relocated to Pueblo, Colorado.

In 1912, the Wichita Witches was put together to compete in the Western League and did so until 1916 when they…moved to Colorado Springs as the Colorado Springs Millionaires (kind of a dope name tbh)…then they moved back to Wichita in 1917.

From 1918 to 1920, the team was renamed the Wichita Jobbers, then renamed back to the Wichita Witches in 1921.

The team was once again renamed in 1923, this time the Wichita Izzies lasted until 1926 before the Wichita Larks name took over from 1927 to 1929.

In next year, in 1930, the team was renamed to the Wichita Aviators as an affiliate to the Pittsburgh Pirates before changing affiliation to the Chicago Cubs in 1932.

Wichita Oilers became the new name in 1933 until halfway through the season, they left and became the Muskogee Oilers.

They stayed down in Oklahoma and Wichita was teamless until 1950 when the Wichita Indians fielded a new team.

Wichita Monrovians

Click the Image to Learn More about ta Short Film Doc about the team

From 1922 - 1929, Wichita had an all-black semi-pro baseball team. If you haven’t heard this story, it is incredible and deserves much more than a little blurb.

You can read the full story here.

The Middle Years (1950 -1955)

In 1950, the Wichita Indians played in the Western League and changed Major League affiliation several times from the St. Louis Browns to Cleveland Indians back to the Browns and then to the Baltimore Orioles.

They played at Lawrence-Dumont in Downtown Wichita and McDonald Stadium in El Dorado.

The team did not survive into the 1956 season.

In 1956, the Toledo Sox moved to Wichita and was renamed the Wichita Braves, an affiliate for the Milwaukee Braves. This lasted until 1958 as attendance continued to drop. The team moved down to Fort Worth in 1959.

Wichita was once again without a team, this time for over a decade before the Aeros came in.

Wichita Aeros

From 1970-1984, the Wichita Aeros found their home at historic Lawrence-Dumont Stadium as a Triple-A franchise for 5 different teams.

Wichita Wranglers

Starting in 1987 the Beaumont Golden Gators moved to Wichita as a Double-A team under the Wranglers namesake.

After the Wranglers left for Springdale, Arkansas, Wichita became home to the Wichita Wingnuts, which was a team in independent league baseball incarnation of the American Association. The Wingnuts played their final game in 2018 when it was announced Lawrence-Dumont Stadium would be demolished in favor of a brand new stadium to host an affiliated Triple-A team.

Wichita Wingnuts

Lawrence-Dumont Stadium

Lawrence - Dumont Stadium - RIP

Lawrence-Dumont Stadium holds a lot of memories for people before it was torn down to make room for the new Riverfront Stadium.

New Orleans Baby Cakes

Formerly the New Orleans Baby Cakes, the team moved to Wichita and was named the Wichita Wind Surge for the 2020 season (which was cancelled because of Covid).

New Era of Wichita Baseball

The new $81 million Riverfront Stadium, now named Equity Bank Stadium came in planning to host 200+ events per year ranging from baseball games to football, soccer, lacrosse games to movie nights, concerts, and much, much more.

They have hosted concerts, football games, and other events, with a lot of promise for the future.

NBC World Series

If I didn’t mention the National Baseball Congress World Series (NBC), there would be something wrong.

It is a national tournament for collegiate and semi-pro players that started way back in 1935 and has seen greats like Barry Bonds, Satchel Paige, Ozzie Smith and Roger Clemens play in it.

We wrote a short history here.

If you had to pick one name for a Wichita baseball team, what would you pick?

What do you want to see us go deep on in a future deep dive?

Let us know!

Wichita Life Party

In ~8 years, we have built one of the largest and most engaged audiences in the Greater Wichita Area.

Our hyper-local digital audience has grown to over 100,000 social media followers, 27,000 email subscribers, millions of views and 10s of thousands of podcast downloads.

All of these numbers are exciting and we are beyond thankful for the support, but Wichita Life has never been about Candace or I, it has always been about you, the community.

Next week we will bring together a bunch of our family, friends, and followers to get to know each other, so we can get to know you, and just to celebrate wins in Wichita.

If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, we would love to see you there.

Get your tickets today!