With a little luck the very first message board might still be at archive.org. For example, searching for the third(?) incarnation of the forums, when the forum url was dynamic.gamespy.com/~dnd3e, yields nothing interesting in the index:
Internet Archive Wayback Machine
According to the index there's only one archived copy, from May 18 2001 (which is broken).
However, there are still archived copies around. Here's one from june 6 the same year:
D&D 3rd Edition News Board - powered by Infopop
Not sure how to find these hidden copies though.
Edit Alright, found something from february 2000: The "post message"-page, complete with the red/black color scheme:
http://web.archive.org/web/200002291...m/z/46117/Post
And yet another word from our sponsors
