Brown Bag History Series

Bring your lunch and learn! This month Dr. Nathan Tye will be presenting "Cranks, Kapitalists, and Giants: Tales of Early Buffalo County Baseball."

Buffalo County was filled with “base ball cranks” (we call them fans today) at the turn of the century. They cheered on Hall of Fame pitcher Bud Fowler and the Kearney Giants in the 1890s. Later they supported homegrown major league players, Shelton’s George Crable and Pleasanton’s Win Noyes. Cranks turned out in droves to cheer on the minor league Kearney Kapitalists from 1910 until 1914, as well as the amateur, school, and pick-up games that flourished at ball parks, farm fields, and school yards throughout the county. Join Dr. Tye as he highlights the baseball stars and teams from Buffalo County’s past.

Nathan Tye is an assistant professor of history at UNK. Tye was born and raised in Kearney, Nebraska. He holds a BA from Creighton University and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Tye’s specializes in Nebraska History, the history of the American West and Midwest, Labor History, Gender and Sexuality History, as well as Digital and Public History. His research documents the fascinating but misunderstood lives of hobos, tramps, and other transient workers that traveled across the West and Midwest by hopping trains from the 1870s through 1930s.

These free programs are a partnership of the University of Nebraska at Kearney's History Department and the Kearney Public Library.

You may also like the following events from Kearney Public Library:

• This Tuesday, 3rd June, 01:00 pm, Knot Just Knitting in Kearney
• This Wednesday, 4th June, 02:00 pm, Teen: Paper Scraps Wall Art in Kearney
• This Thursday, 5th June, 09:30 am, Toddler Storytime in Kearney