1965 – After playing golf one Saturday during the summer, Joel Pritchard, congressman from Washington State and Bill Bell, successful businessman, returned to Pritchard’s home on Bainbridge Island, WA (near Seattle) to find their families sitting around with nothing to do. The property had an old badminton court so Pritchard and Bell looked for some badminton equipment and could not find a full set of rackets. They improvised and started playing with ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball. At first they placed the net at badminton height of 60 inches and volleyed the ball over the net.As the weekend progressed, the players found that the ball bounced well on the asphalt surface and soon the net was lowered to 36 inches. The following weekend, Barney McCallum was introduced to the game at Pritchard’s home. Soon, the three men created rules, relying heavily on badminton. They kept in mind the original purpose, which was to provide a game that the whole family could play together.
1967 – The first permanent pickleball court was constructed in the backyard of Joel Pritchard’s friend and neighbor, Bob O’Brian.
1972 – A corporation was formed to protect the creation of this new sport.
1975 – The National Observer published an article about pickleball followed by a 1976 article in Tennis magazine about “America’s newest racquet sport.”
1976 – During the spring of 1976, the first known pickleball tournament in the world was held at South Center Athletic Club in Tukwila, Washington. David Lester won Men’s Singles and Steve Paranto placed second. Many of the participants were college tennis players who knew very little about pickleball. In fact, they practiced with large wood paddles and a softball sized whiffle ball.
1984 – USAPA “was organized to perpetuate the growth and advancement of pickleball on a national level.” The first rulebook was published in March, 1984. The first Executive Director and President of USAPA was Sid Williams who served from 1984 to 1998. He was followed by Frank Candelario who kept things going until 2004.
1984 – The first composite paddle was made by Arlen Paranto, a Boeing Industrial Engineer. He used the fiberglas/nomex honeycomb panels that commercial airlines use for their floors and part of the airplane’s structural system. Arlen made about 1,000 paddles from fiberglas/honeycomb core and graphite/honeycomb core materials until he sold the company to Frank Candelario.
1990 – By 1990, pickleball was being played in all 50 states.
1997 – Joel Pritchard passed away at age 72. Though he was Washington State’s Lieutenant governor from 1988 to 1996, he is probably better known for his connection to the birth of pickleball.
2001 – The game of pickleball was introduced for the first time in the Arizona Senior Olympics through the efforts of Earl Hill. The tournament was played at Happy Trails RV Park in Surprise, AZ and drew 100 players. It was the largest event ever played to that point. Over the next few years the event grew to nearly 300 players.
2003 – There are 39 known places to play in North America listed on the Pickleball Stuff website. This represents 10 States, 3 Canadian Provinces and about 150 individual courts.
2003 – Pickleball was included for the first time in the Huntsman World Senior Games, held each year in St. George, Utah during October.
2005 – Steve Wong (Past USAPA Webmaster) created the new, improved USAPA website that went live in March. Bill Booth took over as webmaster in May, 2006. Website activity continues to increase as the popularity of pickleball grows and the features of the website increase.
2005 – USAPA became a Non-Profit Corporation on July 1.
2005 – USAPA cooperated with several web sites to have them discontinue their Places to Play links and consolidate all their entries into the USAPA database creating a single reliable source for players to find sites to play.
2008 – The Rules Committee, headed by Dennis Duey, published the USA Pickleball Association Official Tournament Rulebook – Revision: May 1, 2008.
2008 – Pickleball has been included for the first time in the National Senior Games Champion Festival to be held in Providence, Rhode Island September 4 – 7.
2008 – There are now 420 places to play in North American as listed on the USAPA website. This represents 43 States and 4 Canadian Provinces and about 1500 individual courts. This does not take into account those places that are adding courts or the many courts at private homes.
2009 – The first USAPA National Tournament for players of all ages was held in Buckeye, Arizona, November 2-8, 2009. The tournament drew almost 400 players from 26 states and several Canadian provinces.
2009 – USAPA establishs the Grant Program to assist players in creating new sites for new players. By the end of 2013 the program has accounted for over 1,400 new sites.
Source: https://www.usapa.org/history-of-the-game/