Macomb, Ill. — The small town of Macomb, Illinois is about 245 miles southwest of Chicago. That’s where Lizzie Magie invented the game of The Landlord’s Game, the precursor to Monopoly. Now, Macomb is the new home of the World’s Largest Monopoly Game called “Macombopoly.”
The game is played through the use of a state-of-the-art app powered by eATLAS! as the players actually circle Macomb’s historic Downtown Courthouse Square. The Square actually looks remarkably similar the the revolutionary game board that Lizzie Magie designed in 1904. This permanent attraction, which is available to the public free of charge is open 365 days a year 24/7.
I spoke one-on-one with Jock Hedblade, executive director of Visit Unforgettable Forgottonia and the Macomb Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. Here is a transcript of our discussion:
How did the idea come about for the world’s largest Monopoly game and why in Macomb, Illinois?
“Macomb and Forgottonia and McDonough County is a gorgeous, wonderful place to grow up to. I came back and kept very strong ties here. What we didn’t have were attractions that were unique and were available 24/7 and 365 days a year unlike the festivals are. I said, well, we’ve got to start to build some stuff. As we started looking into things, one of the things that popped up about six years before I came down here was…it was discovered through a book by Mary Pilon, who works for The New York Times and is a bestselling author, found out that Lizzie Magie, she invented this game called The Landlord’s Game that morphed into Monopoly, was born right here in Macomb, Ill. We happen to have a downtown square with a courthouse in the middle that is the exact plaque of a monopoly board. I think we’ve got our main attraction in the bag. It took us six years to get here but we did accomplish it and that’s how it all started so we’re really ground zero for Monopoly.”
When people visit your city, how exactly do they play the Macombopoly game?
“We use the sidewalks around the downtown square as your game board. Within that environment, we have these giant Monopoly game pieces all around the downtown square. Then, on the four corners of the square we have the four corners of our version of what would look like a Monopoly-type of game. It’s called Macombopoly. One each one of the sidewalk slicks, there is a QR code and then you play this game through a state of the art app that gamifies the downtown and it’s like Monopoly but it’s also got a lot of other stuff in it. There’s a pursuit aspect to it, there’s lots of trivia, there’s lots of history. There are coupons that you can win. It takes quite a while to play the game all the way through. You have to go around the town square several times. We’ve had an unbelievably response to this since we opened it on May 9, which happened to be Lizzie Magie’s birthday.”
I understand the game is free of charge and it’s open 24/7. Is it lit up at night and what about during rain or snow?
“Yes, the downtown square is very well lit. You can play that at night if you wanted to—rain or snow, whatever’s there. That’s up to you. We don’t have a tarp to pull over the downtown square, not yet, anyway. Yes, you can play this at anytime. Of course, if you come and play this at 2 o’clock in the morning, we would wish that everybody play it quietly because people live above a lot of the businesses on downtown square, but we haven’t had any trouble with that.”
Who designed and built the larger than life Monopoly game? How long did it take to install?
“We worked with a company out of Chicago called eAtlas that had been doing scavenger hunt type of games. They already put together a map of our Looking for Lincoln story here. We have a pretty strong Lincoln story in this town. We have a 10-site self guided tour. We have a giant 16-foot tall bust of Abraham Lincoln that’s made out of a 3D printer and his beard is flowers, live plants. It’s kind of a topiary roadside thing. We had already built that but they had come and put a scavenger hunt with it, add coupons and that stuff. At the time we were working and were about halfway through the Macombopoly game here and we were looking for somebody who would gamify it.
“We knew it had to be played in a phone. We knew it wasn’t practical to play the game as you being the game piece and going around. There might be a time in the future where we do that on special occasions but it wasn’t practical for a day-to-day type of game. So this was something they hadn’t done before. We worked closely hand-in-hand for a year building this. They had the nuts and bolts of it and put it together. We sort of had the concepts and the ideas. We worked closely together on creating this downtown area that has Macombopoly in it. There’s video…Lizzie Magie talks to you. There’s a connection between Lizzie and Abraham Lincoln. It all kind of happened because of here in Macomb. That’s how we did it.”
When I saw the pictures and the video, I saw these large sculptures that can turn. Please tell me more about those.
“We have a pair of dice that stand on top of each other. They turn independently, yes. We also have a giant Lincoln’s stovepipe hat, also a giant representation of the board when Lizzie invented it split in half and how it is today. We have another one of the game pieces—it’s just Lizzie Magie and then we have go to jail, too. If you get thrown in jail on this game, the only way to get out of jail is by taking a selfie and posting it on social media. Then, you are released from jail and you can continue the game.”
Do you encourage people to bring their own monopoly game board and pieces?
“I don’t know, it’s possible. I haven’t seen that yet. We do have our own game here, Macombopoly that we sell a lot of. Downtown businesses sell it here. What we’re looking to do in regards to your question there, down the road and over the winter, we’re going to be looking for any type of Monopoly tournaments that happen that we might be able to host here. We want to design something that will allow people to do that. What we released on May 9 is what we hope is just phase one of a growing attraction. We could add different things and build out as time goes by as the popularity increases.”
How much has tourism increased since the game opened in May?
“We’re still crunching some of those numbers but I can tell you that thousands of people have played the game from virtually every state in the union and including Canada and China, internationally. Those are what we know of. Some people just show up, don’t play the game and want to have the experience. The city has just done some number crunching and studies on people visiting the downtown square and this seems almost unbelievable but I think it’s possible given what we’ve seen here. We had 600 people download the app before they could even play it. From May 1 to August, almost 500,000 people have visited the downtown square in that time. It’s pretty amazing.
“Are all of those people playing Macombopoly? Probably not. The numbers have been going up. We’re able to keep pretty good track of where they’re coming from. If they’re not making a special trip to do this, we’ve had people driving from Seattle to Niagara Falls and made a severe left turn and went south to come here and play this game before they moved on. We’ve been very, very grateful. We understand the popularity of Monopoly but the fact that it has really taken ahold like this. When we launched this game, we had media coverage from 740 different media outlets across the nation. It was like, woah, wow. That’s a lot for a little town like us.”
Many people are probably wondering…is there a prize at the end of the game?
“It is a competitive game in the fact that there are standings where you can be the leader or not. Within the game, however, there are a lot of coupons and discount coupons in businesses and restaurants that you can win by answering the right questions. We plan on expanding some of those things too. We’re just in phase one of our season. The ideas right now are endless, really. Wow, we could do that. We’re excited about it.”
For those who have played Monopoly GO, would you say Macombopoly is similar to that?
“I think it’s similar in the fact that it is an app. But it is definitely different from that in the way that it works…there’s not properties that you own here, you move down the spaces. It’s all geared towards this area and this region. There’s a lot more trivia, opportunities to go and see another attraction here and take a picture with it and come back. There are those Monopoly elements in it that people will recognize but its kind of even more than that.”
What other attractions should people check out while in Macomb, Illinois?
“We have a tremendous amount of history here. Like I talked about before, Abraham Lincoln had a very close tie to this town and was here often times before he was president, running for Senate. He stayed in one of the hotels here and divised what we know now as the Freeport Question. That was a question that was divised during the debates to throw Douglas off his track when it came to the slave question which lost Lincoln his bid for the Senate. But when he ran against him two years later as president, he was able to beat him. That’s very important in the history of Abraham Lincoln and this nation that happened here in Macomb.
“We’ve got a murals tour. C. T. Vivian, who was one of the cornerstones of the Civil Rights movement, was involved in it before MLK was, brought Martin Luther into the fold. This was his hometown. We have a giant mural, about his whole history during the Civil Rights movement from the time he graduated here from high school to the time he got the presidential award. We’ve got a lot of recreation, a couple of different lakes. There’s a prairie labyrinth here. It goes on and on. We have a pretty full list of those things at www.visitforgottonia.com. You’ll see there’s an awful lot to do in this tiny ‘burb.”
How easy is it to get to Macomb, Illinois via car, plane or train?
“You can take a train from Chicago and land literally right outside of our office because we’re inside the train depot. There are major interstates that get you down here from about any direction. We’re promoting to from a 250-mile radius to bring in the folks from Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Quad Cities, all of that. It’s a very easy day trip. If you want to use Amtrak, it even gets easier. It’s a little off the beaten path but its a fun drive. I would say you’re about 30-35 minutes off of the interstate but it’s a very scenic, beautiful drive to get here. It’s kind of tucked away, but that hasn’t been stopping anybody so far.”
For more info about “Macombopoly” and Visit Unforgettable Forgottonia, go to:
https://www.visitforgottonia.com/macombopoly-the-worlds-largest-monopoly-game/.
All photos courtesy: Visit Unforgettable Forgottonia
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