late 1940's american art deco streamlined style "centennial" bowling alley locker cabinet designed and fabricated by the brunswick corp., chicago, il. the oversized freestanding locker room unit contains five distinct compartments with intact hinges doors. the spacious interiors feature large indentations conforming to the shape of a bowling ball for storage purposes. original baked enameled finish largely intact. the bowling ball locker is comprised of heavy gauge folded and pressed sheet steel. salvaged from a chicago area bowling alley. brunswick was founded by john moses brunswick who came to the united states from switzerland at the age of 15. the j.m. brunswick manufacturing company opened for business on september 15, 1845, in cincinnati, ohio. originally j. m. brunswick intended his company to be mainly in the business of making carriages, but soon after opening his machine shop, he became fascinated with billiards and decided that making billiard tables would be more lucrative, as the better tables then in use in the united states were imported from england. brunswick billiard tables were a commercial success, and the business expanded and opened up the first of what would become many branch offices in chicago, illinois in 1848. in 1873, the brunswick company merged with competitor great western billiard manufactory owned by julius balke to become the brunswick & balke company, incorporated with a capital stock of $275,000. in 1884, another competitor, h.w. collender company of new york (founded by hugh w. collender), was absorbed to form the brunswick-balke-collender company (or b.b.c. company for short). the company expanded into making a number of other products. large ornate neo-classical style bars for saloons were a popular product. bowling balls, pins, and equipment led a growing line of sporting equipment. it popularized bowling balls of manufactured materials, vulcanized rubber at first; earlier bowling balls had been solid wood. in the early 20th century, brunswick expanded the product line to include such diverse products as toilet seats, automobile tires, and phonographs. in the late 1910's, they introduced a quickly-popular line of disc phonograph records, under the name brunswick records. in 1930, brunswick sold the control of the record company to warner brothers and came out with a line of refrigerators. during world war ii, brunswick-balke-collender made small target-drone aircraft for the u.s. military. after the war, brunswick introduced a line of school furniture. in 1955, the brunswick "model a" mechanical pinsetter fully automated unit premiered, for the purpose of handling bowling pins for the sport of tenpins, in competition with american machine and foundry (amf). measures 72 x 15 x 21 inches.