Paintball History Starts With Cattle

Anyone that enjoys the planning and strategy of military operations may assume that paintball history started somewhere on the battlefield, or at an army base that needed a way to train its soldiers without losing any of them. In reality, paintball history isn't quite as glamorous as that. It all began with stray cattle in the forest. Really.

Paintball History Starts With the Gun

In the 1950's the Nelson Paint Company came up with a type of gun that cattlemen used to mark stray cows with a blotch of paint. It was easier for these ranchers to do this from a distance than to try to run down the cattle.

In the 1970's, three friends were having a conversation about one's recent safari to Africa, and the conversation turned to the thrill of the hunt. They began to devise a game where they could all hunt each other down as prey, and then not long after one saw the paintball gun advertised in an agriculture magazine. Paintball history began to be formed, as the men realized the use of such a gun when hunting each other.

Paintball has evolved and through the years and can be played in different ways. In one version of the game teams can one flag each and the other team must capture that flag in order to win. Another game has the same objective as the first will except there is only one flag that is situated in the center of the field and each team tries to be the first to capture the flag. The other way of winning (other than capturing the flag) would be to eliminate all of the players of the opposing team with paintball hits.

The Popularity Grows

Each of the men began to invite friends of their to their battle simulations, with "capture the flag" style games being played on nearby fields. As more and more friends began to be interested in the games, they realized they had a commercial opportunity on their hands, and paintball history continued to be formed. They entered into a contract with the Nelson Paint Company to be the sole distributors of the paintball markers, along with accessories such as goggles.

"Survival," as the game was called then, was written about in Sports Illustrated magazine, and this did much to contribute to paintball history being formed. More and more men and eventually even the women realized the thrill of the hunt and franchises, organized teams, tournaments, and dedicated paintball fields began springing up all over the world.

Today paintball is played by millions around the globe and there are even professional teams that tour the world. Of course, it's never a good idea to remind any of them that their precious paintball history didn't begin on the battlefield or with the military or with glorified soldiers earning medals, but with some poor ranchers marking some stray cows. We'll just keep that small tidbit of information to ourselves, shall we?