Alfred Mosher Butts

Alfred Mosher Butts ( born April 13, 1899 in Poughkeepsie, New York, † April 4, 1993 ) was an American architect. He invented in 1938 in his birthplace, the word game Scrabble.

In 1931 developed the then unemployed Butts a precursor of Scrabble called Lexico. This game was played without a board, equipped only with dots letters. But success did not come, because the game was in 1933 refused by the Patent Office and also was not approved at two games manufacturers Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley.

1938 Butts changed its development. Crossword gave him the idea to combine the letters with a game board on which words such as could be formed in a crossword puzzle. But the success of the new approach was missing. As Butts had no way to produce the game, he returned to his old profession as an architect.

1948 then took Butts friend James Brunot the matter in hand and made ​​the breakthrough.