Background
Mayer was born in Kösingen (now part of Neresheim), Württemberg, Germany, where his family had been foresters and ministers for generations.
Mayer was born in Kösingen (now part of Neresheim), Württemberg, Germany, where his family had been foresters and ministers for generations.
He immigrated to the United States as a teenager and moved to Detroit to live with a cousin. Mayer found work at a meat market on Chicago"s North Side and started a butcher and sausage-making shop of his own in 1883, when he was 24 years old. Five years later, the proprietor who owned the store refused to renew Mayer"s lease, hoping that he could profit from Mayer"s business success.
Pushed out on his own, Mayer bought a property and constructed a two-story building for his business and family.
With the company"s continued growth, it became a sponsor of such events as polka bands and the German exhibition at the World"s Columbian Exposition in 1893. The company had grown to 43 employees in 1900, offering meat delivered across the city of Chicago and its suburbs.
Capitalizing on an industry trend, the company started using its own brands for its meat products in 1904 and was one of the earliest participants in the Food Safety and Inspection Service, created under the Federal Meat Inspection Acting of 1906, to verify the contents of its products. By the time of his death, the business named after himself had grown to 9,000 employees, with facilities in Davenport, Iowa, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
In 1912, Mayer founded the Lincoln Park Gun Club with P.K. Wrigley, Sewell Avery, and other prominent Chicagoans.
His great-grandson and heir Chuck Collins is an economist and philanthropist.