Jewel Tea Company

Company History: In 1899, Frank Vernon Skiff founded Jewel in Chicago, Illinois, as a door-to-door coffee delivery service. In 1902, Skiff partnered with his brother-in-law Frank P. Ross, renaming the venture the Jewel Tea Company. By 1903, they had six routes and then 12 routes in 1904 with expansion into Michigan City, Kankakee, and Kewanee. There were 850 routes by 1915. During World War I, the company faced soaring costs for materials and production and, compounding this problem, the U.S. government commandeered a key Jewel production facility. As a result, by 1919 the company was experiencing severe financial setbacks. Within a few years, however, it returned to profitability through the leadership of new company officials, retired Commanders John M. Hancock and Maurice H. Karker, who had both gained extensive logistics experience as U.S. Navy supply officers during the war. In 1929, the company built a new office, warehouse, and coffee roasting facility in suburban Barrington, Illinois, creating hundreds of local jobs despite the Great Depression. The Barrington location served as the headquarters and main warehouse facility for both the home delivery and food store divisions until the completion of the new warehouse and office complex at Melrose Park in 1953. In 1949, deliveries were provided on 1876 routes in 43 states to customers mostly in small towns while customers in cities could go to 154 company owned grocery stores. Later, the service expanded to include 350 grocery and 10,000 general merchandise items by 1981 when Jewel decided to sell its "Jewel Home Shopping Service" division to its employees and divest itself from its roots. At the time of the divesture, the division provided service to customers in mostly small towns located along 1000 routes in 42 states.The division became a 700-member owned cooperative called "J.T.'s General Store" in which each route sales persons were independent self-employed agents. In October 1994, a group of the company's managers acquired the assets of "J.T.'s General Store" and "created J.T. Dealers Sales and Service". By 1995, "J.T. Dealer Sales and Service" was providing service to 60,000 customers along 250 routes in 35 states.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_(supermarket)From Wikipedia

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.