A Short Timeline of the Scrabble Board Game

How, why, when, and where did Scrabble originate? Americans weren’t always
obsessed with the question, “What do these letters spell?” A few people with
ingenuity in New York in the 1930s and ’40s developed the game we now
know and love. Here’s a brief Scrabble timeline:

 1930s: During the Great Depression, when Scrabble was invented, an

unemployed architect from Poughkeepsie, New York, named Alfred
Mosher Butts begins designing the popular game, which he imagines as
a combination of a board game, number game, and crossword puzzle.
As urban legend has it, he chose the frequency of the game’s tiles and
their values by counting up the letters on the front page of The New
York Times. Funny enough, he reportedly did not like to spell.
 1948: After selling the game as “Lexiko” and then as “Criss-Cross
Words,” Butts hands the reins to a New Yorker named James Brunot to
mass-produce the game. Brunot comes up with a new color scheme as
well as the now-famous name “Scrabble.” The game is trademarked in
this year.

Fun Fact: The word “scrabble” is a real word; it means “to scratch, claw, or
grope about clumsily or frantically.” You can play the word scrabble in the game
Scrabble if you have the right tiles!

 1949:Brunot and his family rent an abandoned schoolhouse in

Dodgington, Connecticut, to hand-produce the game. They reportedly
make 2,400 sets but lose $450.
 1950s: Scrabble explodes in popularity when Jack Straus of Macy’s goes
on vacation and discovers the game, deciding he wants to sell it in
Macy’s stores.
 1952: The game is licensed to and manufactured by the Selchow &
Righter Company.
 1953: Some of the rules, like parallel words and the effects of premium
squares, are clarified.
 1973: The first tournaments begin, unofficially at first.
 1976: The rules are updated again to make clear who goes first, whether
a player can pass their turn, and the final scoring.
 1978: The first national tournament is held, the North American
Invitational.
 1984: Scrabble becomes a game show on NBC, running until 1990.
 1986: Selchow & Righter is sold to COLECO Industries.
 1989: COLECO Industries and its games are sold to today’s owner,
Hasbro Inc.
 1991: The World Scrabble Championship (WSC) officially begins.
 1999: There is another major rule change, making clear some of the
rules around challenges.
 2003: The first National School Scrabble Championship takes place in
Boston.
 2004: The game is inducted in the National Toy Hall of Fame.
 2009: The competing online game Words With Friends is released and is
an overnight success.