The company was founded in Denver, Colorado, on March 10, 1910 by Black Hawk, Colorado-born luggage salesman Jesse SHWAYDER (1882–1970) as the Shwayder Trunk Manufacturing Company. A religious man, SHWAYDER named one of his initial cases Samson, after the Biblical strongman, and began using the trademark Samsonite in 1941 for its tapered vulcanized fiber suitcase, introduced in 1939. In 1965 after the Samsonite suitcase became its best-selling product, the company changed its name to SAMSONITE. For many years the subsidiary SAMSONITE Furniture Co. made folding chairs and card tables in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The SHWAYDER family sold the company to Beatrice FOODS in 1973. Samsonite operated with relative independence within Beatrice until 1986, when the company was sold to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Subsequently, the company went through multiple changes of ownership in the 1980s and into the 1990s. First, Samsonite was spun off from KKR as part of E-II, which came under the control of American Brands. E-II went through bankruptcy and was renamed Astrum International. In 1993, Astrum purchased American Tourister luggage, complementing Samsonite. In 1995, Astrum split, and an independent Samsonite (now including American Tourister) was once again headquartered in Denver. The Denver factory, which employed 4,000 at its peak, closed in May 2001. Samsonite headquarters moved from Denver to Mansfield, Massachusetts, after a change of ownership in May 2005. Samsonite moved its US marketing and sales offices from 91 Main Street in Warren, Rhode Island, to Mansfield, Massachusetts, effective September 1, 2005. In 2005 the company was acquired by Marcello BOTTOLI, former CEO of Louis Vuitton, to pull them out of a long slump. BOTTOLI left the company in 2009.