History of Paintball

One might be surprised that paintball didn't start out nor was ever intended as a sport. This game began in the 1970's with the department of agriculture and and guns were intended to mark trees and not to be used in a game to compete with eachother. Farmers would also use these paint guns to mark their cattle, so to say in short... paintball actually began with cows.

When it came to it though, farmers started having fun with these paintguns and shooting at eachother and having fun with these guns they used for farming. It was in 1971 that James Hale of Daisy Manufacturing Company has started developing the first actual paintball gun and had patented the first gun.

Although, James Hale had patended the first gun in 1971 it wasn't until May of 1981 in New Hampshire that the real fun started to begin. Bob Gurnsey and Hayes Noel were the original creators of the guns and game that lead to the popular sport today known as paintball. Bob was a sporting good retailer and Hayes was a stockbroker and in June of 1981, 12 people acquired foresters guns and they used them to play a game known today as "capture the flag" which is still today one of the most popular paintball games.

The objective of this game was quite simple to understand and very fun. You had to capture the other team's flag while protecting your own flag. When a player was struck by a paintball, they were required to call themselves out.

What launched this sport into such a popular sport is the 12 people that started this game. The Nelson company began selling these tree marking guns to the public to get their business started and to get the popularity of paintball rolling. In 1982 the game was so fun that the very first paintball field opened in Rochester, New York and it wasn't long after that the indoor arena soon followed that. The game used to be an "every man for himself" type of game when it was first introduced and has evolved today into many types of games and teams.

It was in 1983 that the very first NSG Championship was held with a winning purse of $14,000 and one year later the fields were opened to players in Australia. It was then in 1988 that the International Paintball Players Association, which is a non-profit orginization that has made the game what it is today.