BETHEL — A recently demolished building at the intersection of Plumtrees and Rockwell roads had a historical connection to a popular board game.
Before it was a 2,880-square-foot building, the torn down structure at 88 Plumtrees Road had been a barn, as well as the site of a Scrabble factory.
The crossword game was invented in the 1930s by an architect from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., named Alfred Mosher Butts, whose idea became a reality thanks to Newtown resident and entrepreneur James Brunot.
After Brunot made small scale sets of Scrabble in his home woodworking shop in Newtown before moving operations into a former schoolhouse in the Dodgingtown section of town in 1948.
With more and more orders pouring in, Brunot decided in the winter of 1952 to move the Scrabble factory into a larger, red wooden barn at present-day 88 Plumtrees Road in Bethel.
About 24 people from Bethel, Danbury and Newtown were employed at the site, according to a 1953 article published in the Newtown Bee.
Business continued to boom, but manufacturing facility limitations and problems importing cut and finished hardwood from Germany started stalling production.
That’s when Brunot decided to enter a contract with Selchow and Righter to have the game manufacturing company handle marketing and distribution of Scrabble.
Selchow and Righter handled orders and furnished most Scrabble boxes and playing board, while the Bethel factory was responsible for numbering tiles and manufacturing deluxe sets, charting boards and other products.
It’s unclear when Bethel’s factory ceased operations, but Brunot sold the Scrabble trademark to Selchow & Righter in 1972, according to the brand’s current owner Hasbro, Inc.
The building at 88 Plumtrees Road was home to different businesses following its Scrabble factory days — including a furniture stripping and refinishing shop, as well as a daycare — but it had been unoccupied for the past several years.
It was demolished earlier this week to make way for a single-family house, which building official Chris Baldwin said the current property owners plan to construct on the original foundation’s existing footprint.
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