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The History of PaintballThe history of paintball starts with a paintball. No gun, no other delivery device – as best I can tell, the originators threw the ball. Not at a person either. At a tree. According to one history of paintball, cows were also early targets. Paintballs were invented when a lumberjack complained to an inventor about how much of a pain it was to go trekking back into the woods through the underbrush to mark a tree he wanted to cut down. “It would be easier if I could just throw the paint!” he moaned. And the inventor created paintballs, back around 1945. The first paintball gun in the history of paintball was not invented until 1970, when James Hale of Daisy Manufacturing (yes, that’s the BB gun manufacturer) patented his .66-gauge paintball gun. For some reason, no one thought of shooting at one another at this point; instead, paintballs were shot at more trees and at cattle. Ranchers used paintball marks as temporary brands until they could get to the calf and brand it properly. History of Paintball: The First Paintball GamesIn May 1981, in New Hampshire, Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel, and Charles Gaines – respectively, a sporting goods retailer, a stockbroker, and a writer, decided that they didn’t want to be grownups all the time. They came up with the idea of a stalking wargame. On June 1981, their idea came to fruition; 12 players played the first capture-the-flag game with Nel-spot 007s paintball pistols. And the winner captured the flags – boringly – without firing a shot. But that kind of dull game was not to last. Paintball caught on quickly, and by April 1982 – less than a year after the Idea – the first outdoor playing field in the history of paintball opened in Rochester, NY. Charles Gaines began marketing paintball as the National Survival Game (NSG), and the first paintball company, PMI, was founded to market and distribute paintball equipment. And in 1983, the first National Championship and the first paintball publication (The Official Survival Game Manual) both came out. It had been less than two years since the idea was first formed. Paintball games caught on throughout the world. The first Australian paintball group in the history of paintball was formed in 1984. England followed soon afterward, and today you can play paintball from the US to Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Italy, and the Philippines. Early Paintball TournamentsThe first tournament played in the history of paintball had a cash prize of $14,000. Today’s tournaments may involve hundreds of players for days, and have cash prizes much larger. You can find paintball tournaments all over the world by asking at your local paintball shop, or by looking online for paintball tournament sites. The newsgroup Rec.sport.paintball regularly posts paintball tournament announcements and places you can go for further information. For more information, look up the NPPL (National Professional Paintball League), or check out Team Internet’s information on the World Record Games. The history of paintball, compared to most other sports, seems almost compressed. It evolved seemingly almost instantaneously with full-fledged tournaments, accessory shops, playing fields, and hordes of avid players. But the history of paintball cannot eclipse what it’s really all about – small groups of friends getting together in the woods to blow the crap out of one another with little paint pellets. Figuratively, and lovingly, of course, all for bragging rights and who gets to buy the beer when it’s all over. The wholesome roots of paintball will never change. Related Paintball ProductsFeatured Products: Spyder
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