The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company the then-new concept of prepackaged tea under the "Thea-Nector" name. The tea company continued to use the "Great American" name for mail-order purposes. In 1871, A&P introduced another concept when it offered premiums, such as lithographs, china, and glassware with the purchase of coffee and/or tea at its stores. These premiums are now collectibles. George Huntington Hartford joined Gilman & Company as a clerk perhaps in the late 1850s; Hartford later was promoted to bookkeeper, then cashier, in 1866. By 1871 Hartford was in a position of authority and was responsible for expanding A&P to Chicago after its great fire.
Great fire of Tirschenreuth Great fire of Tirschenreuth The Great fire of Tirschenreuth took place on 30 July 1814 and destroyed nearly all of Tirschenreuth, a small town and regional centre in the east of Bavaria, close to the frontier with Bohemia. The great fire was the greatest catastrophe in the town's history apart from the invasion by Swedish troops that took place in the context of the Thirty Years' War two centuries earlier. The fire was discovered between 9 and 10 in the morning in the storage barn of a toy maker called Joseph Scherbaum. The cause of the fire is unclear, although