CINCINNATI

Fifteen year-old John Moses Brunswick was a Swiss Jewish immigrant to the United States in 1834.  After apprenticing at various trades in the Eastern U.S., he married and settled in Cincinnati.  After living here for two years working on a steamship, on September 14, 1845,  he opened a carriage-making business that he called the J. M. Brunswick Manufacturing Company.  Not long in business, he lost interest in the low margins carriages were bringing and took on making billiard tables.  (All good billiard tables were imported at that time.)  He was a huge success.

He expanded his business quickly opening other plants and offices around the country.  Brunswick's scope expanded to include a wide variety of products.  Here are a few, some have come and gone:  bowling balls, bowling pins, pinsetters, ornate wooden bars, toilet seats, phonograph players and records, refrigerators, bicycles, yachts, boats, machine guns, assault rifles, camouflage nets, . . . do you get the picture.  Oh, those boats include the name plates, Bayliner, Boston Whaler, and Sea Ray and recently, engines and motors to power them.  Enough!

The Brunswick Corporation is headquartered now in northern Illinois.  In 2016, the company had an operating income of $409 million on sales of $4.489 billion.

Pool tables!

"A pool table, do you hear me? Friends either you are closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are unaware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community."   The Music Man!
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