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May 1, 2000
President Clinton announces that Selective Availability (SA) will be turned off.
May 2, 2000 @ 12:00 AM
Selective Availability is turned off.
The Great Stash Game!!
Dave Ulmer makes the first Usenet post about what will become Geocaching.
May 3, 2000
The Great American GPS Stash Hunt!
Dave Ulmer elaborates on his idea.
GPS Stash Hunt... Stash #1 is there!
Dave Ulmer places the very first GPS Stash (Geocache).
May 4, 2000
Global Positioning Stash Hunt (GPSH) The name of the Game!
Dave Ulmer is looking for help in putting together a FAQ and creating a web site for GPS Stashes.
Erhard Kraus makes a suggestion for a "code of conduct" and expiry date for stashes.
Great GPS Stash Hunt - Stash #1 was Found!!
The first GPS Stash is found for the first time.
At the end of this message thread we find possibly the first suggestion of including an e-mail address in the cache so that the hider can be notified when the cache is found.
May 5, 2000
GPSH Faq Overview draft..
Dave Ulmer posts the first draft of a GPSH FAQ.
GPSH Faq Car Stashes draft
Dave Ulmer posts the first discussion regarding "Car Stashes".
May 6, 2000
The Worlds ONLY GPS !!
Still only ONE GPS Stash in existence.
The Geodesic Positioned Stash (GPS)
Dave Ulmer (tongue planted firmly in cheek) suggests a new meaning for the term GPS.
GPS Stashes & stuff, opinions please
With only one GPS Stash in existence, TomTom is already looking for a way to make stash hunts more challenging.
May 7, 2000
GPS Stash #2 and #3
Mike Teague places the 2nd and 3rd GPS stashes.
Did you know that two of the first three stashes (caches) were located on Mt. St. Helens?
GPS Stash Hunt: The Divine Stashes!
Dave Ulmer suggests the first "specialty" stash.
May 8, 2000
Worlds First Divine Stash now in place!!
Dave Ulmer hides the first "specialty" stash.
GPS Stash Hunt Homepage
Mike Teague creates and posts the first GPS Stash Hunt web site (the precursor to Geocaching.com).
The web site no longer exists. The link above shows what the site looked like on June 21, 2000.
May 10, 2000
My First GPS Stash Hunt Adventure (gulp)!
Dave Ulmer posts the first GPS Stash "log entry".
In this message thread we also find the first suggestion for a rating system for stashes.
Southern California GPS stash
The first California GPS stash is announced (hidden on 5/9/2000).
May 11, 2000
GPS Stash Hunt - New Stashes in CA, KS.
Seven stashes have been hidden in four states (OR, WA, CA and KS).
Stamped Offset Stashes (SOS)
Coordinor (aka Dave Ulmer) suggests a new stash type. Possibly the first mention of the "offset" cache (multi-cache) concept.
Glueing a penny to a rock...
Coordinor (aka Dave Ulmer) expands on the idea of SOS.
May 12, 2000
Stash page/faq yet?
Coordinor (aka Dave Ulmer) posts an expanded version of the GPS Stash Hunt FAQ.
(Which combines the original FAQ, the Car Stash FAQ, the SOS concept and offers the first thoughts on the lifetime of stash.)
May 13, 2000
Re: GPS Stash Hunt - New Stashes in CA, KS. and IL
Illinois gets its first GPS stash.
First New Zealand GPS Stash Hunt site
First stash placed outside the United States is hidden in New Zealand. (Hidden 5/12/2000)
May 15, 2000
First In Latin America
Chile becomes the third nation to join the game.
Circular Offset Stashes (COS)
Looking to make GPS Stash Hunting more difficult and challenging, Coordinor (aka Dave Ulmer) comes up with an idea for a new type of cache.
Billy Graham Memorial COS.
Coordinor (aka Dave Ulmer) announces the first Circular Offset Stash.
GPS Stash group
James H. Coburn IV creates a GPS Stash e-mail group.
This group still exists as the gpsstash Yahoo! Group. You'll have to join the group to be able to read the messages.
May 18, 2000
Lane Cove
Australia gets its first GPS Stash.
May 20, 2000
Stashed on the edge of My Seat!
Coordinor (aka Dave Ulmer) discusses a pair of challenging caches.
May 26, 2000
New GPS Stashes
More new stashes, including the 2nd in New Zealand.
In GPS Stash e-mail group message #8, Dave Ulmer is already thinking about the future of this new game and questions if the name "GPS Stash Hunt" is the best name for this activity and wonders if there is a better name . . .
From: "David J. Ulmer"
Date: Fri May 26, 2000 4:58 am
Subject: Second Thoughts
Greetings,
I've been having some second thoughts about the GPS Stash Hunt project
especially since things have slowed down a bit.
I'm thinking we got the right game but the wrong name!
Reluctantly, I put on my spandex, buy some bottled water, and load up my
walkman with Barbara Streisand and take a new look at stash hunting....
It appears that the word Stash has some negative connotations, maybe
illegal, maybe subversive, maybe just too related to the hippies and drugs.
Doesn't seem to fit in todays spandex, natural, eco tourist world we now
live in.
Hunt also has problems, it takes us back to our hunter gather roots and
certainly doesn't relate to our environmentalist, pro-sumer consumer reality
of today.
If the idea is going to sell in todays market, it may need a name that
garners fuzzy feelings of respect and admiration of our fragile environment.
Something the do-gooder of today would be proud of. Something the school
teacher and Boy Scout leader could have pride in teaching their children.
Something that makes your wife "feel good" about you after a long day of
searching.
So should we change the name? To what? Should we change the game?
Second Thoughts?
Dave...
This touches off a flurry of messages and ideas including Planeteering, Geosatplaneteering and the early front runner for a new name: Geostash. Mike Teague, among others, seems to feel it's too early
in the life of the game to worry about the name and argues against a name change.
May 30, 2000
Matt Stum (in e-mail group Msg #62) coins a new term - Geocache - and offers it in place of the term Geostash. This looks to be the first use of the term Geocache:
From: Matt Stum
Date: Tue May 30, 2000 8:04 am
Subject: Cache vs. Stash
Regardless of the final name, can we please replace
the word "stash" with "cache"? "GPS Cache Hunt"
and "Geocache" still sound find. I believe it still works
with all of the variations that David came up with
(Geocaching, geocacher, etc).
Here's my reasoning:
1) Several people have already stated their dislike for
the term "stash" on the basis that it sounds illegal.
To my ears, "stash" sounds a little immature, but that's
a personal feeling.
2) "Back in the old days", especially in the Yukon and
northern climes, explorers would leave caches of food
and supplies at known locations so that they'd
have them on their return trip. Some caches were
"community property" and known by all who took a
particular trail. If they needed something, they took it,
and if they had extras of something, they left it. Sound
familiar?
3) The word "cache" both brings forth feelings of nostalgia for the
days of exploring, as well as a "techie" feeling for those
that associate it with computer memory.
Personally, when I get a chance to check on my cache's
again (they're 6 hrs from where I live) I'll remove all references
to any particular game. I'll probably add a custom rubber
stamp and register the cache with the letterboxing folks as
well. Might as well double the fun. My "clue" for the letterboxing
folks will simply be the lat/lon coordinates. I believe their game
is flexible enough to allow that.
Matt
Soon afterward, Dave Ulmer says he likes the new term (Msg #63):
From: "David J. Ulmer"
Date: Tue May 30, 2000 8:27 am
Subject: Re: [gpsstash] Cache vs. Stash
Matt, your right ! Cache is better than Stash ! Stash does have that illegal
tinge to it that has bothered me all along..
OK, I'm game to go geocaching and change my stashes to geochaches. All I
need to do now is remember how to spell it and type it :)
Dave...
May 31, 2000
In Msg #75 Dave Ulmer makes the name change "official":
From: "David J. Ulmer"
Date: Wed May 31, 2000 6:50 am
Subject: Just Formalities my friends!
The results of the Name the Game is wonderful, we now have a Formal name for
the game!
Stash and GPS Stash Hunt are informal names.
Geocache and Geocaching can be the formal name.
We can have various informal names for the game, whatever a webmaster wants is
ok but we do need a formal name for the black-tie affairs. Formal names are
usually boring but can be useful for getting financing and the like. There can
now be both formal Geocache sites and informal Stash sites and it can all be
fun.
Even formalities can enrich the game!
Dave...
June 1, 2000
Geocache, a new word for your dictionary !
Geocaching is born!
INTRODUCTION TO RECREATIONAL GEOCACHING
An article by Dave Ulmer. (From the GPS Stash Hunt web site)
Geocache Distance Table
Matt Stum announces a new web site.
The web site gives the distance of each cache from a given coordinate pair (by default the position of the first cache). The list can be sorted by date placed as well. The page indicates that as of 8/17/2000 there were sixty-four (64) caches hidden world wide.
The site is inactive now. The link points to the page as of August 17, 2000.
Thanks to the The Internet Archive Wayback Machine, most of the links (to the photos, etc.) still work.
June 3, 2000
First Irish GPS Stash
Ireland joins the Geocaching community.
And so ends the first month in the history of Geocaching. By the end of May 2000, twenty-one (21) caches (five outside the U.S.) have been hidden world-wide.
Other Dates of Historical Geocaching Interest:
September 2, 2000
The first(?) mention of a new web site, Geocaching.com, is mentioned in the e-mail group (Msg #359:
From: "Jeremy Irish"
Date: Sat Sep 2, 2000 8:12 pm
Subject: RE: [gpsstash] GPS Stash home page
Yesterday it looked like the site had gone down, so I sent Mike an email. I
also noticed that the root of the site looks like the machine went through a
reinstall. Haven't heard anything more.
I was hoping to wait until there was more functionality available, but I
might as well plug Geocaching.com - All the stashes are available on the
site (and hopefully current), and I added some new capabilities to help you
find each stash. Some of the stuff works (like you can log a find online)
but some of the administration of your own stashes doesn't work quite yet.
Any input would be appreciated.
The geocaching phenomenon is starting to get too big to maintain on multiple
sites - hopefully I can add some functionality to take it to the next level
and make it easier to grow. I already talked to Mike Teague via e-mail and
he likes the direction so far. Let me know what you think!
New capabilities:
Nearest placenames (US only - trying to get other country data) to caches
Closest caches by zip code (US only again)
All caches have their own page with mapping data.
You can log a cache online (owners of caches will be able to remove bogus
logs)
Will be adding the ability to add your own stashes, update content, add
pictures of your visits, etc.
http://www.geocaching.com
(it also works at www.geocashing.com - the way it sounds)
Cheers,
Jeremy
September 8, 2000
Geocaching - web site?.
Possibly the first mention of Geocaching.com in the Newsgroup.
February 11, 2001
Ron Streeter, a name well known in Northern California Geocaching, hides his first cache, Blue Top (CacheID# 644).
April 22, 2001
The author (Kimbo) finds his first cache, Cache for Kids (CacheID# 799).
May 20, 2001
Kimbo brings Geocaching to the Sacramento area of California by hiding his first cache, Granite Beek (CacheID# 2523), which is also the first cache hidden in the Sacramento area.
June 26, 2001
The major Sacramento newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, prints an article on Geocaching. Many members of the RCGDS are introduced to Geocaching by this article.
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