Turning 70

In July, the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center will celebrate its 70th birthday.

The Bert Nash Center opened on July 5, 1950. University of Kansas psychiatrist Sigmund Gundle was the first director.

The Center is named for Dr. Bert Nash, a renowned children’s psychologist. As a student at Washburn University, one of his professors was Dr. Karl Menniger, one of the most influential psychiatrists of his time.

When Bert Nash died unexpectedly from a brain hemorrhage in 1947 at the age of 48, Dr. Menninger described Bert Nash as “my most distinguished student.” The Lawrence Journal-World said of Dr. Nash, “Few men have given so much time and energy to advancing the cause of child welfare.”

Community leaders were deeply interested in mental health and wanted the innovative work Dr. Nash had started to continue. So they worked to establish a facility in his memory. Three years later, the Bert Nash Center was born.