The year is 1931, and the depression is going strong. Alfred Mosher Butts, a local architect, lost his job. With no job and little money and nothing but time, he started toying with his hobby – word games. He had an idea, to develop a game that was part skill, part luck. He started counting letters on the pages of the New York Times to determine the frequency they were used in everyday language. Once he finished his game, which he called Lexico, he applied for a patent. He was turned down. He was also turned down by Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley for manufacture of his game.
Not one to give up, over the next 5 years, he made over 200 games himself which he gave to family and friends, and sold what he could. Lexico was not a success however, and he decided to combine the game he had developed with a game board which would allow players to combine words in the same manner as a crossword. Again he applied for patents and manufacturers, and again he was turned down.
Mr. Butts decided to put the game aside. And until after World War
II he put no further effort into it.
One of the original owners of the game, James Brunot, contacted Mr.
Butts several years later and said he thought the game should be
marketed, and wanted to do the work. They came to an agreement with
Mr. Brunot manufacturing the game, and Mr. Butts receiving
royalties.
With a few minor changes, simplified rules, and a new name Scrabble
was trademarked, and the manufacturing began in the living room of
the Brunot home. Soon after, the Chairman of Macy’s played the game
while on Christmas vacation. He loved the game so much that upon
return to work, he requested that several copies of the game be sent
up to his office, only to find that Macy’s did not stock the game.
This was soon rectified and Macy’s developed a promotional campaign
for Scrabble, which sky-rocked the game into instant popularity.As
the popularity of the game spread however, the Brunots knew they
could not keep up with demand.
The rights to Scrabble were licensed to Selchow and Righter, and
through various company sales and mergers, Scrabble eventually came
to be in the possession of Milton Bradley, 53 years after turning
the game down.
Today, there are tournament played all over the world with the first
Scrabble world championship played in 1991. Mr. Butts lived to see
his brainchild, Scrabble, become the most popular work game in the
world, in played it until his death in April, 1993.