| In 1976, Hayes Noel, a stock trader, Bob Gurnsey, and Charles Gaines were walking home and chatting about Gaines' trip to Africa and his thrill hunting buffalo. They wanted to recreate the adrenaline rush that came with the thrill of the hunt, the two friends came up with the idea to create a game where they could stalk and hunt each other. 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 made by the Nelson Paint Company. The Nelspot 007 had, until this time, been used only to mark and identify trees and cattle. Twelve players finally competed against each other with Nelspot 007s pistols in the first paintball game on June 27, 1981. |
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