Charles Mayer left his native Germany at age 19 to start his own business after he had learned retailing as an apprentice merchant. In 1840 Mayer settled in Indianapolis after first stopping in Baltimore and Cincinnati. He opened a small grocery and general store originally called Charles Mayer’s, at 29 West Washington Street.
By 1850 Charles Mayer’s was known as a gift store after it began importing fancy music boxes and doll buggies. The business changed its name to Charles Mayer and Company in 1866 after Mayer made his clerk of 11 years, William Haueisen, his partner. About this time Mayer began a wholesale trade in addition to his retail business. The firm was well known outside of Indianapolis. In 1871 called Charles Mayer and Company one of the “curiosities of the West.”
When Haueisen retired in 1888, Mayer’s sons, , educated in a Moravian academy at Pragins, Switzerland, and Greylock Institute at South Williamstown, Massachusetts, became partners in the family business. In the early 1890s, Charles Mayer and Company employed 21 traveling wholesalers and a total of 80 employees.
Founder Charles Mayer died in 1891. The wholesale business continued until 1902, after which time the company focused solely on retail. In 1925 Charles Mayer III succeeded his father, Charles Mayer II as head of the firm. However, with no direct male heirs to take over the family business, the store closed in January 1955 after selling its inventory to .
In December 1992, Charles Mayer and Company reopened in a new location in the neighborhood. Several business partners, including Claudia Ryan, a former Vice President of Fashion Merchandising, for L.S. Ayres Company, and her husband Tim, the maternal great-great-grandson of the founder, own the store, which offers home furnishings, accessories, and an art gallery.
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