(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Anyone who likes playing the board game Monopoly will want to head over to Macomb, Ill., on Thursday for a special day meant to honor Lizzie Magie, the mother of Monopoly.
“She invented the game Monopoly,” said Jock Hedblade, the executive director of Visit Unforgettable Forgottonia, which functions as the Macomb Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Hedblade spoke with WBBM about Magie, a Macomb native who was born in 1866, died in 1948, and did a whole lot in between.
A rendering shows an Lizzie Magie's The Landlord's Game overlaid on Macomb's downtown square. The Landlord's Game was the precursor to Monopoly. Photo credit The JKO Agency “It just so happens that our downtown square here in Macomb, Ill., looks very much like a Monopoly game,” he said. “To pay homage to her, we are building the world’s largest Monopoly game.”
The game will be playable through a QR code on a “Go” tile installed at the southeast corner of the town square. By scanning the code, the entire downtown square will become the world’s largest Monopoly board.
The game will be unveiled on Thursday.
The game will be playable through a QR code on a “Go” tile installed at the southeast corner of the town square. Photo credit The JKO Agency “There’s going to be large, Monopoly-style game pieces,” he said. “There’s going to be a large pair of dice that spin, a giant board game that will show Lizzie’s original game on half of the side and then the Monopoly game as we know it today on the other side.”
Magie's original game was called “The Landlord's Game,” and it was the precursor to Monopoly, which Parker Brothers bought the rights to for $500.
Lizzie Magie's original Landlord's Game. The Parker brothers bought this game for $500 and went on to create Monopoly. Photo credit The JKO Agency “The Parker brothers tracked her down,” he said. “They had actually worked with her once before and produced a game that she had invented … [They] struck a deal with Lizzie to buy the rights of the game Monopoly, and then they would put out a couple of other games of hers, including a completely different version of the Landlord’s Game so that it wouldn’t compete with Monopoly.”
Hedblade said Macomb’s giant Monopoly game will be a permanent attraction, with the hope that Magie will never be forgotten.
See more photos of the installation below:
Macomb crews created giant Monopoly sculptures to go along with the permanent installation. Photo credit The JKO Agency 
Photo credit The JKO Agency 
Photo credit The JKO Agency 
Photo credit The JKO Agency Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!
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