History of Paintball
Paintball History – How it all started !!
1970
James Hale of Daisy Manufacturing, invented and patented what would become the first paintball gun.
This original paintball gun was manufactured and used by farmers and ranchers for marking trees and livestock.
May 1981
Paintball began in New Hampshire, U.S.A. the principal creators were
Bob Gurnsey, a sporting goods retailer
Hayes Noel, a stockbroker
Charles Gaines, a writer
June 27, 1981
The first game played:
12 players competing against each other
Using Nel-spot 007s pistols
The game was capture the flag
The winner captured all flags without firing a shot!
Charles Gaines wrote an article about it for Sports Illustrated:
On June 27, 1981, the three of us, along with nine other argument-resolvers–among them a doctor, a movie producer, an investment banker, an Alabama turkey hunter, a Vietnam vet and a New Hampshire forester–slipped into a hundred acres of woods near my house from different points around its perimeter at a pre-arranged signal. Each of us wore camo and shop goggles, and were equipped with a temperamental Nel-Spot 007 bolt-action paintball pistol, 20 or so balls of paint, extra CO2 cartridges, a compass and a map of the 100 acres indicating the location of four flag stations and the home base. At each of these flag stations hung 12 flags of a particular color. The point of this game was to be the first man to reach home base with four differently colored flags and without having been marked with paint by another player.
You talk about fun? Even Hayes (who, I’m convinced, spent his time lost and whimpering under a bush until someone–me–mercifully found and shot him) had fun. It was not surprising that each man played the game as he lived; the bold seeking firefights, the cautious sneaking through the woods avoiding them, the duplicitous perching in trees. Even less surprising (to me, anyway; Hayes still believes it was a fluke), the game was won by the forester, who never fired a shot and was never even seen by another player.
There is a much more detailed examination of Paintball as a sport at Wikipedia.
On June 27, 1981, the three of us, along with nine other argument-resolvers–among them a doctor, a movie producer, an investment banker, an Alabama turkey hunter, a Vietnam vet and a New Hampshire forester–slipped into a hundred acres of woods near my house from different points around its perimeter at a pre-arranged signal. Each of us wore camo and shop goggles, and were equipped with a temperamental Nel-Spot 007 bolt-action paintball pistol, 20 or so balls of paint, extra CO2 cartridges, a compass and a map of the 100 acres indicating the location of four flag stations and the home base. At each of these flag stations hung 12 flags of a particular color. The point of this game was to be the first man to reach home base with four differently colored flags and without having been marked with paint by another player.
You talk about fun? Even Hayes (who, I’m convinced, spent his time lost and whimpering under a bush until someone–me–mercifully found and shot him) had fun. It was not surprising that each man played the game as he lived; the bold seeking firefights, the cautious sneaking through the woods avoiding them, the duplicitous perching in trees. Even less surprising (to me, anyway; Hayes still believes it was a fluke), the game was won by the forester, who never fired a shot and was never even seen by another player.
