Pangburn arrived in Buxton when the town was at its zenith.
For Pangburn, who had been born and raised in Elizabeth, Buxton must have seemed just like home, and it must have seemed like a whole new world – all at the same time. A community centered around coal, as Buxton was, must have been familiar. Pangburn understood life in the mines: his father was a coal miner, so were his brothers, and so was he. But unlike Elizabeth, where his family had lived for nearly a hundred years before he was born, Buxton, Iowa was a Black Utopia, at least that’s what Booker T. Washington and Richard Wright said. Residents recalled that Blacks and whites co-existed with relatively little discord in Buxton, wages were comparable for Black and white workers. Unlike other company towns, Buxton had decent housing, a growing class of middle-class Black professionals. Thanks to Consolidate Coal, the company that created the town, the town boasted a thriving entertainment scene.
The Wonders were at the center of this Utopia. The games were like parties – with food, music & the whole town gathered to root for the home team. The players worked hard in the mines during the days and then played ball into the small hours. 1909, the year that Pangburn debuted with the Buxton Wonders, was a banner season for the team. This sandlot team managed to handily beat the Chicago Giants, one of the winning-est teams that year. And Lefty, as Pangburn became known, was on the mound for the wins. The papers declared Lefty “perhaps the greatest colored twirler.”
But dream of Buxton was short-lived. By 1920, Buxton was all but abandoned, the mines dead, and the Utopia a distant memory. By then, Lefty was back in Elizabeth, married to Pearl Montgomery and at work in the SWPA mines, where he’d work until he retired.
Today, a historic plaque marks the site of Buxton, Iowa. Lefty Pangburn rests in an unmarked grave in Round Hill Cemetery.
