In the fall of 1971, three student teachers (Bill Heinemann, Paul Dillenberger and Don Rawitsch) were trying to figure out how to make the historical subject unit of “The Western Expansion of the Mid-19th Century" more interesting to students.
Rawitsch was already developing a board game, but they came up with the idea of making it into a video game. Computers were rare in those days, but the crew used a teletype computer in a former janitor's broom closet at Bryant Junior High School to crank out an early prototype of the video game in 2 weeks: Oregon Trail was born.
The success of the game grew rapidly, the ownership of the game and the company changed hands several times. Oregon Trail helped to begin an era of educational video games and still remains popular to this day.
Source: Mental Floss
