The 'World's Largest Monopoly Game' Is Free To Play In This Midwest College Town

For economics students at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, there's a new interactive object lesson in town. Instead of an artsy college town with good food and music, Macomb's claim to fame is local resident Lizzie Magie, who invented The Landlord's Game in 1904. The game went on to become Monopoly in the 1930s, after a student of the game, Charles Darrow, sold a version of Magie's game — with a few key changes — to Parker Brothers. Magie's identity as the game's original creator was not uncovered until 1973, when another economics professor was researching patents of Monopoly-style games.

Although the largest physical game board of Monopoly stands in a park in San Jose, California, the game in Macomb is different. Macomb's town square, which happens to look suspiciously similar to a Monopoly board, is "ground zero for Monopoly," the executive of the tourism bureau, Jock Hedblade, told AmericaJr. The four sidewalks surrounding the downtown square, decorated with giant Monopoly pieces, stand in for the four sides of the Monopoly board. QR codes on buildings link to an app that prompts players with questions and next steps, making the experience a blend of the physical and virtual. And because it wouldn't be anything without branding, this version of the game is called "Macombopoly."

Macomb, as the university's name might suggest, is located in western Illinois. It takes about three and a half hours to drive there from Chicago or Des Moines, and only three hours from St. Louis. The game is located in Macomb's Courthouse Square. 

Joining the auspicious, record-holding likes of the world's largest kaleidoscope in New York or the world's longest corn maze in nearby Spring Grove, the world's largest Monopoly game, Macombopoly, has its own set of rules. Taking selfies with landmarks in the square, like the Macomb County Courthouse, answering questions about the town's history –- which also has an Abraham Lincoln connection –- and mastering Monopoly trivia will all net you points and win you coupons at local businesses.

The original Landlord's Game was designed with dual modes of play: one mode equally distributed wealth when it was created (the anti-monopolist method) and the other encouraged single-player wealth creation and domination (monopolist method). As an anti-monopolist herself, she wanted the game to teach players the dangers of oil barons, big business and ultra-landholding landlords, who were some of the major monopolists of the day. The Parker Brothers' version, of course, adopts the monopolist method of play, ending only when a single player takes over the entire wealth of the game.

The totally free, 24-hour, year-round, open-access giant Monopoly game in Macomb adheres to Magie's own economic belief that an individual's labor and its results should belong to the individual, while everything found in the natural environment belongs to everyone. WIU students can learn more about the economist and politician who inspired Magie, Henry George, by reading his 1879 book, "Progress and Poverty."