History of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company New Year's Eve Pickle Drop The idea has its roots in the skills of World War II bombardiers. They were so accurate, it was claimed, they could drop a bomb in a pickle barrel. In the 1950s, Pickle Packers International invited a few folks to Chicago to test their skills: they stood at the top of a skyscraper and dropped pickles into barrels on the sidewalk below. Those with perfect aim, of course, received a year's supply of pickles. Fast forward to 1999, the year Mt. Olive became the official Pickle and Pepper of the Millennium. For the advent of the new age, we staged our first pickle drop on New Year's Eve. We did it at around 7, since Mr. Crisp had a date later that evening. There were just eight of us, including our President Emeritus Johnny Walker and his wife, Mr. Crisp, Community Relations Representative Lynn Williams and her family, and Maintenance Superintendent Ray Joyner. Ray did the honors of dropping a "pool pickle" on a rope into a brine tank. We had so much fun at New Year's in 1999, we decided in 2000 to stage the second New Year's Eve pickle drop in our tank yard. This time, we invited our employees and their families to kick off our 75th anniversary in early 2001. It occurred to us that 7 o'clock here in Eastern North Carolina is actually midnight Greenwich Mean Time, and a tradition of being early (but official) on New Year's Eve was born. By 2001, we opened the New Year's Eve Pickle Drop to the general public. We refurbished a perfectly preserved redwood pickle tank and placed it around our flagpole at the Corner of Cucumber & Vine. We offered live music, free refreshments, and door prizes for those who brought canned food for the Salvation Army's food bank.  That year the Mayor of Mount Olive, Louis Pate, helped us dedicate the tank, along with 250 of our friends and neighbors. We brought out the "Pickle Polka," and, at the right moment, we sang "Auld Lang Syne" accompanied by bagpipes. In 2002, figuring that New York has nothing on us, we added a marquee. It counts down the final hour from 6 to 7 p.m. and ensures the pickle comes down the pole at precisely the stroke of 7 o'clock midnight. We also added lights to the pickle itself. A little over three foot long, polythylene and green, the pool pickle is so named because it floats. In 2003 and 2004, we had about 500 people join us to celebrate the New Year, including North Carolina's Commissioner of Agriculture Britt Cobb. In 2005, a warm evening yielded the best crowd ever: approximately 1,000 people. Read the Mount Olive Tribune coverage. Another warm year in 2006 yielded an even better turnout - up to 1,500 people. The first New Year's Eve Pickle Drop t-shirts are introduced in the gift shop and the marquee is hung about six feet above the tank so that the crowd can see it better. See photos. For 2007, we teamed up with Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina for a food drive. We collected 1,180 pounds of food! We also had a record crowd - about 2,000 people.