Thanks for the history. I maintain this list[0], and wasn't aware of OG localtunnel, likely because there's a somewhat newer and now more popular project with the same name[1]. You appear to be correct on timing. Here's the earliest commits on GitHub for each of the projects:
OG localtunnel (23 Jan 2010): https://github.com/progrium/localtunnel/tree/fb82920d9d3e538...
Other localtunnel (17 Jun 2012): https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel/tree/93d62b9dbb9f...
ngrok (20 Mar 2013): https://github.com/inconshreveable/ngrok/tree/8f4795ecac7f92...
I'll see that OG localtunnel gets added to the list for posterity.
[0]: https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling
[1]: https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel