Charles E. Barley
One of the most telling enterprises located in the city of Marion and one that gives regular employment to more than two hundred men, is the Harwood & Barley Manufacturing Company, of which Charles G. Barley is treasurer and general manager. It is not small matter to be responsible for an enterprise that means so much in dollars and cents to the city wherein it is established, and the man who directs the destinies of such an establishment can not fail to be a power for good in any community where his labors are expended.
Charles G. Barley was born near the city of Marion, on April 5, 1874, and is the son of James L. and Louise J. (Gordon) Barley. The father, a native of Grant County, this State, also claims April 5th as his natal day, his birth occurring on that day in the year 1851, and the family may well be said to be one of the best known in the county, where members of it have for three generations been more or less prominent in business and social life. The mother of the subject came to Grant County when she was sixteen years old, in company with David Bish, who was her guardian and who reared her from childhood to young womanhood.
Charles Barley received his education in the public schools of Marion and later attended the Marion business College, graduating from the commercial department of the latter, and upon emerging from that institution he entered the employment of the Barley & Spencer Lumber Company, with whom he was connected for a year. The next three years he spent with the old Sweetser & Turner Elevator, as manager, and for five years thereafter he was manager of the Marion Ice & Cold Storage Company. In all these positions, in his managerial capacity, he gained much of valuable experience that has been of invaluable help to him in his own business, and gone far toward making it the splendid success that has marked it since its organization. It was in 1898 that with George C. Harwood he organized the Harwood & Barley Manufacturing Company, a close corporation organized for the manufacture of iron and brass beds, bed springs, and motor trucks, and their growth has been exceptional from the start. today their annual output aggregates seventy-five thousand beds, twenty-five thousand bed springs, and their output of motor trucks last year was one hundred and fifty. The firm employs two hundred men and the weekly payroll of the concern reaches $2,500. After fifteen years of life, the concern has reached a place of considerable importance in the industrial world of Marion and is counted among the solid and worth-while enterprises of the city and county.
Mr. Barley is a stanch Republican, but not a politician, and he is an earnest member of the Civic Assembly. He and his wife are prominent in social and other circles in the city.
Mr. Barley has membership in the Mecca Club, an exclusive social affair, and is a member of the Elks Lodge at Marion.
The marriage of Mr. Barley to Miss Mae Harwood, the daughter of his partner, took place on October 16, 1902, and they live in their new home on Spencer Avenue, this city. They have no children.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914.