Short answers, pulled from the story.
Brunswick Corporation was founded on the 15th of September, 1845, in Cincinnati, Ohio, by J. M. Brunswick, a Swiss immigrant who came to the United States at the age of 15. It originally operated as the J. M. Brunswick Manufacturing Company.
Over its history Brunswick made automobile tires, toilet seats, phonograph records, refrigerators, target-drone aircraft, school furniture, bowling equipment, mechanical pinsetters, golfing equipment, yachts, pleasure boats, fitness equipment, marine electronics, and military hardware including camouflage nets and radomes for the Patriot missile.
The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company officially changed its name to Brunswick Corporation on the 10th of April, 1960. The following year the company reported sales of $422 million.
Brunswick exited bowling because marine and fitness businesses together accounted for 92% of company net revenues in 2013, making bowling a marginal contributor. The bowling center business was sold to Bowlmor AMF for $270 million in 2014, and the bowling equipment division was sold to BlueArc Capital Management in May 2015.
Mercury Marine is a marine engine brand that Brunswick acquired in 1961. It remains one of Brunswick's core holdings and is counted among the company's primary brands as of its 2024 reported sales of $5.2 billion.
Brunswick Corporation's global headquarters is in Mettawa, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. The company previously occupied a modernist-style skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, engineered by Fazlur Khan of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which Cook County purchased in 1996.