Many years ago, I became interested in a form of gaming that attempted to simulate military battles using fairly sophisticated game systems. The hobby is called war gaming. A company called Avalon Hill distributed the games widely, which is how I discovered this hobby. They published a magazine, which was used to promote a few conventions. In 1973, I read about a war game convention in nearby Lake Geneva. My friends and I convinced one of our parents (none of us had drivers licenses) to drive us down for a day. The convention was held in Horticulture Halls in those days.

At the convention, we met a fellow named Gary Gygax, who invited us to come down and join the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association for some additional games.

A few months later, I had a drivers license and borrowed my moms car and we drove down for a game of Chainmail that was held in an unheated garage on a sand table. They invited us back for a new game, which they called Dungeons and Dragons, and was to be held at Gary Gygax’s house.

On the day we were to play D&D, instead of going directly to Gary’s house, we met at another gamers house. We piled into one car and rode together over to Gary Gygax’s house arriving early. Since Gary didn’t like early arrivals, we had to sit in the car and wait until we were no longer early. This modern picture shows pretty much the same view we had of his house from that car, except that I believe that visit was in winter.

Once we arrived, we were ushered down to the basement, which doubled as Gary’s shoe repair and leather shop. I remember there were about 12 of us crowded into that basement. I think two of us survived that epic trip into Greyhawk. After that game, each of our group from Whitewater bought from Brian Blume a copy of the game rules, which were hot off the presses. We had to put the labels on the box ourselves.

A couple of years later, TSR was planning on republishing a set of Civil War Miniatures gaming rules that I had developed and self published. By then, they were operating out of a house on Williams Street.

However, it was not to be, as D&D had become so successful, that TSR decided to focus entirely on D&D and they dropped other forms of wargaming.

I will be meeting up with an old friend this evening. Rick was one of my friends that participated in those trips to Lake Geneva.

I took these pictures today after riding my bike back down to Lake Geneva. It’s surprising how little these buildings have changed. It was a very nice ride totaling 60 miles.

One funny thing happened while I was sitting on a park bench by the lake waiting for the house on Williams Street to open. A lady walking by saw me and my bike and asked me if I had biked far. The answer certainly surprised her.