The peace pipe was carved in 1967 to symbolize the good will between Western Michigan University and Miami University of Ohio. Both institutions were football rivals at the time. The peace pipe was conceived of by Rick Markoff, then president of the WMU senior class. This was one of many initiatives created by members of the senior class after concerns were raised that it was largely uninvolved in campus events put on for the benefit of the student body. Terry Moore, former senior class vice president, was serving as an instructor in the Industrial Education Department and agreed to carve the pipe. Markoff hoped the pipe would garner as much notoriety as the Little Brown Jug or the Old Oaken Bucket.

The winning university of the annual football game between WMU and Miami received the peace pipe to display at its school for the following year or until losing a game in the future. The trading of the pipe, after the team holding the pipe had lost, became known as the “Peace Pipe Ceremony.”

Three representatives of each university met mid-field after the game and exchanged the pipe. The representatives then shook hands and the pipe was displayed at the winning university. It is not known how representatives were selected. One year, Miami University recruited from the Student Foundation of Miami. In 1987, WMU selected representatives who had been heavily involved various homecoming activities. The ceremony itself was independent of homecoming festivities; it occasionally coincided with Homecoming.

The peace pipe, however, was not immune to criticism. In 1989, contributing columnist H.R. Schmidt wrote in the Western Herald that the peace pipe was representative of an imagined Wild West, a culture and history that never existed to begin with. Controversy may have stretched beyond WMU. Athletic teams of Miami of Ohio were for many decades known as the Redskins. The name changed into 1996 to Redhawks and may have influenced a decision to retire the peace pipe.

The final ceremony of the peace pipe was held in 2001 after WMU defeated Miami and reclaimed it.