Paintballing History

Paintballing started as a hunting game between two friends in the woods of Henniker, New Hampshire. The game was originally called the National Survival Game, as it was not recognized as a sport at the time. In 1976, Hayes Noel, a stock trader and his friend Charles Gaines, a writer, were walking home and chatting about Gaines' recent trip to Africa and his experiences hunting buffalo. Eager to recreate the adrenaline rush that came with the thrill of the hunt, and inspired by Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game, the two friends came up with the idea to create a game where they could stalk and hunt each other.

In the ensuing months, the friends talked about what sorts of qualities and characteristics made for a good hunter and survivalist. They were stumped, however, on how to devise a test of those skills. It wasn't until a year and a half later that George Butler, a friend of theirs, showed them a paintball gun in an agricultural catalog. The gun was a Nelspot 007 marker manufactured by the Nelson Paint Company and was used by cattlemen to mark cows. Noel and Gaines each purchased a pistol and had a duel in what became the very first game of paintball. Gaines won.