Page "Scrabble" Paragraph 9

In 1948, James Brunot, a resident of Newtown, Connecticut – and one of the few owners of the original Criss-Crosswords game – bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold.

Though he left most of the game ( including the distribution of letters ) unchanged, Brunot slightly rearranged the " premium " squares of the board and simplified the rules ; he also changed the name of the game to " Scrabble ," a real word which means " to scratch frantically.

" In 1949, Brunot and his family made sets in a converted former schoolhouse in Dodgingtown, a section of Newtown.

They made 2, 400 sets that year, but lost money.

According to legend, Scrabble's big break came in 1952 when Jack Straus, president of Macy's, played the game on vacation.

Upon returning from vacation, he was surprised to find that his store did not carry the game.

He placed a large order and within a year, " everyone had to have one.