The franchises included are those of high-caliber independent teams prior to the organization of formal league play in 1920 and concludes with the dissolution of the remnant of the last major Negro league team, the Kansas City Monarchs then based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in about 1966.
(The Indianapolis Clowns continued on through about 1988, but they had morphed into an entertainment act much as the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team of today.)
All teams who played a season while a member of a major Negro league are included.
The two thick gray lines represent trying times: the first is the Panic of 1893 and the second is the Great Depression in 1933.
Both crisis led to financial ruin and collapse of most teams and leagues.