Whitewater rafting can be traced back to 1811: the first recorded attempt to navigate Wyoming’s Snake River. Though the first rubber raft was likely built in the 1840s, a century passed before the first commercial rafting trip took place in 1940. In the late 1950s, a lodge in Grand Teton National Park began offering float trips using 8 ft. by 27 ft. surplus war rafts. In the 1960s and 70s, whitewater rafting companies began forming, and the sport was officially included in the Olympics for the first time in the 1972 Munich games.
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