Lawrence-Dumont Stadium

Lawrence-Dumont Stadium is a stadium in Wichita, Kansas. It is primarily used for baseball, and is the home field of the Wichita Wingnuts independent baseball team. It was built in 1934 and last renovated in 2001. It holds 6,400 fans and is one of the few stadiums in the world that features a natural grass outfield with an astroturf infield.

It was home to the Wichita Wranglers minor league baseball team. The Wranglers left Wichita at the end of the 2007 season and moved to Springdale, Arkansas, where the team will be renamed the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. The Wichita Wingnuts now play at Lawrence-Dumont.

Lawrence-Dumont Stadium is also home to the annual National Baseball Congress World Series, the annual North American championship of the NBC, an organization of 15 amateur and semi-professional baseball leagues operating in the United States and Canada. It has been played in Wichita at L-D Stadium annually since 1935. In 1949, the ballpark was the last to host the College World Series before Omaha, Nebraska became its permanent address the following year.

The stadium is named for Charles S. Lawrence, Wichita mayor from 1933 to 1934 who died on September 20, 1934 after convincing the city to move the park within the city limits. The construction of the stadium was a WPA project; Works Progress Administration which employed workers during the depths of the Great Depression.(Blue laws earlier prohibited baseball within the city and games were played on Ackerman Island in the middle of the Arkansas River. That stadium burned in 1934. Ray “Hap” Dumont had promised to hold semi-pro games in the new ball park (which was built with WPA help. He paid Satchel Paige $1,000 to bring the Bismarck Churchills to the stadium to play in the first NBC Championship.

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