The Gygax Memorial Fund is working in concert with Horticultural Hall to celebrate its historic importance as the site of the first ever, Lake Geneva Gaming Convention. To achieve this initiative, a GEN CON® Founder Stone will be laid, and a permanent display or interpretive sign is being planned for year round visits to the site.

The history of this is that in 1968 Gary Gygax decided he could run a war gaming convention with just the help of his family and friends. On August 23, 1968 the Geneva Convention as it became to be called, hosted nearly 100 gamers from around the country. With the exception of two years where it was held elsewhere, GEN CON®, as it is now referred to, had a presence in the Horticultural Hall through 1977.

As the convention grew from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of attendees, it expanded into the Holy Communion Episcopal Church Guild Hall and the American Legion Hall as well. Eventually the convention outgrew Lake Geneva and added the Playboy Club in 1977. Then leaving Lake Geneva completely in 1978, it moved to the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, then to MECCA (Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center & Arena), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and finally, to its current site, the ICC (Indiana Convention Center), Indianapolis, Indiana.

GEN CON® is now the largest table top gaming convention in North America with over 60,000 attendees each year and is a major source of income for the city of Indianapolis every summer. And it all started with Gary Gygax and his vision to create a Midwestern gaming convention in his little hometown of Lake Geneva.