The spring ritual is traced to 1823, when residents of Peters Hollow, which sits below Iron Mountain, and Rome Hollow, located across the valley below Holston Mountain in northeastern Tennessee, argued whose chickens laid the hardest eggs. They were just figuring out how to have a little fun. It's not clear who won the initial contest, but a rematch was sought the next spring. We've been fighting eggs on Easter ever since. The event is as much a homecoming as it is a contest.
Former residents return home each year from other places in Tennessee and several other states.
Sometimes even strangers are lured to Peters Hollow. It seems some exchange students from Russia were visiting a nearby college and were brought to the egg fight by their local hosts. Another memorable year was 1966, when Brooks Taylor, a longtime player, defeated 142 consecutive challenges with a single blue-colored egg. No egg has even come close to that record. There are only a few rules to egg fighting, the Ritchie brothers noted.