LAKE GENEVA — The board game Dungeons & Dragons and the tabletop gaming convention GenCon can both be traced back to Lake Geneva. Gary Gygax created both in the city and lived in Lake Geneva for most of his life.
"He was a kid who grew up here who played in the abandoned sanitarium, which fueled his imagination to write these dungeon-crawling stories," recalled local historian Sonja Akright, the co-director of the Geneva Lake Museum.
Gygax organized the first GenCon in 1968 at Horticultural Hall in Lake Geneva several years before he created Dungeons & Dragons. The name itself is a reference to Lake Geneva, as it was formally known as the Geneva Convention in its early years.
The Geneva Lake Museum opened an exhibit solely dedicated to Gygax and his work three years ago. Akright makes sure every guest takes a walk through the Gygax exhibit during their visit.
"The diehards come in specifically to see the exhibit, but then we have people who come to see the museum who say, 'I didn't even know that guy lived here.'"
Watch: Lake Geneva honors D&D creator:
The museum also features a map with a self-guided tour of the places in Lake Geneva where Gygax has history. It includes Horticultural Hall and the Lake Geneva Public Library, where a group is raising money for a permanent memorial to Gygax.
Akright said the continued success of both GenCon and Dungeons & Dragons are pieces of Lake Geneva's local pride.
"It's amazing how that many people are interested in this and continue to be interested in this," Akright said. "He was just a guy, but he was a very important guy."
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