Historical Kansas

The Menninger name on this plaque began as a family practice. Dr. Charles F. Menninger and his sons, Karl and William, started it in Topeka in 1919, and it is described as the first group psychiatry practice. A sanitarium followed in 1925 and the Southard School for children in 1926. The Menninger School of Psychiatry opened in 1946 and quickly became the largest training center in the country, driven by the need for psychiatrists to treat veterans of the war. Karl Menninger's book The Human Mind of 1930 was a bestseller. In June 2003 the clinic moved to Houston.

What the plaque says

Historical Kansas When Kansas territory was opened for white settle- ment on May 30, 1854, a bitter contest developed over the slavery question. Established the following December, Topeka, 25 miles ahead, favored the Free-State cause even though the territorial government was at first Pro- slavery. Rebelling Free Staters attempted to set up a rival legislature in Topeka in 1856. Acting for President Franklin Pierce came Col. E. V. Sumner with five companies of U.S. dragoons and two cannon specially loaded for legislators. Lawmakers understood the message and adjourned reluctantly, but Topeka got even. When the city named its first streets for early Presidents, Pierce was omitted. Free Staters eventually won out and Kansas became a state January 29, 1861, with Topeka the capital. The Statehouse, started in 1866, was completed in 1903. Topeka is known throughout the world for the contribution of its Menninger Foundation to mental health. South of the city the Topeka Army Air Field (later Forbes Air Force Base) was a processing center in World War II for B-17, B-24 and B-29 aircraft and crews. From a few miles west of Topeka to Lawrence, I-70 generally follows a main route of the Oregon-California trail, traveled from the late 1830's to 1860 by thousands of emigrants, in hundreds of wagon trains. Erected by State Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park — 24 mi
  Monroe Elementary in Topeka, one of four grade schools the city kept for Black children, now the museum of the case that thirteen Topeka families brought and the Supreme Court decided in 1954.
• Prairie Peoples Park (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) — 24 mi
  The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation's powwow grounds west of Mayetta, on the reservation the band held when most Potawatomi in Kansas took allotments and the promise of citizenship.
• Flint Hills Discovery Center — 25 mi
  Manhattan's city-run museum of the tallgrass prairie, opened in 2012 at the edge of downtown, and the place to have the Flint Hills explained before driving into them.

More markers nearby

• Bluestem in the Flint Hills / Beecher Bibles — steps away
• St. Marys — 9.6 mi
• The Vieux Crossing — 12 mi
• Louis Vieux — 15 mi