When the GPS signal degradation called Select Availability (SA) was removed by the Clinton Administration May 1st, 2000 (statement), it opened up the possibility of games like this one.

On May 3rd, a container of goodies was hidden by a someone outside of Portland, Oregon - in celebration of the removing of Selective Availability. By May 6th the cache was visited twice, and logged in the logbook once.

Mike Teague was the first to find the container, and built his personal web page to document these containers and their locations that were posted to the sci.geo.satellite-nav newsgroup.

In July of 2000, Jeremy Irish found Mike Teague's web site and found his first cache outside of Seattle, Washington. Recognizing the potential of the game (but never expected the growth), Jeremy approached Mike Teague with a new site design, used the name Geocaching, and developed a new web site adding virtual logs, maps, and a way to make it easier to maintain caches as the sport grew. The site was alive for a while, but the official torch was passed to Jeremy on September 6.

Since the launch of the web site, the Geocaching sport has grown to caches in all 50 states and over 100 countries. There are now many variations of the game, including virtual caches, offset caches, puzzle caches, and multi-stage caches. New ideas and new great games crop up every day.

From its inception, Geocaching.com has been developed and maintained by Jeremy, with the assistance of Geocachers around the world. Many thanks to the Geocaching community for making the game it is today. The official web site for Geocaching is Geocaching.com.

Who knows where it'll go next!