On January 5, 1904, U.S. Patent No. 748,626 issued to Lizzie J. Magie on a Game Board:

Lizzie’s game is eerily similar to C.B. Darrow’s Monopoly game, patented 31 years later (U.S. Patent No. 2,026,082):

One has to wonder what justified Darrow’s monopoly on Monopoly after Lizzie’s patent? A bunch of street names from Atlantic City, New Jersey?