Colonal sanders

According to his 1974 autobiography, before Harland Sanders became a

world-famous Colonel, he was a sixth-grade dropout, a farmhand, an army
mule-tender, a locomotive fireman, a railroad worker, an aspiring lawyer, an
insurance salesman, a ferryboat entrepreneur, a tire salesman, an amateur
obstetrician, an (unsuccessful) political candidate, a gas station operator, a
motel operator and finally, a restaurateur.
At the age of 65, a new interstate highway snatched the traffic away from
his Corbin, Ky., restaurant and Sanders was left with nothing but a Social
Security check and a secret recipe for fried chicken.
As it turned out, that was all he needed.
Sanders was born in Henryville, Ind., in 1890. Six years later, his father
died, forcing his mother to enter the workforce to support the family. At the
tender age of six, young Harland was responsible for taking care of his
younger siblings and doing much of the family's

cooking.
A year later he was already a
master of several regional dishes. Over the course of the next 30 years,
Sanders held many of the jobs listed above, but throughout it all his skill as
a cook remained.
In 1930, the then 40-year-old Sanders was operating a service station in
Corbin, Kentucky, and it was there that he began cooking for hungry
travelers who stopped in for gas. He didn't have a restaurant yet, so
patrons ate from his own dining table in the station's humble living quarters.
It was then that he invented what's called home meal replacement

selling complete meals to busy, time-strapped families. He called it,

Sunday Dinner, Seven Days a Week.
As Sanders' fame grew, Governor Ruby Laffoon made him a Kentucky
Colonel in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state's cuisine.
Within four years, his establishment was listed in Duncan Hines'
Adventures in Good Eating.

As more people started coming strictly

for the food, he moved across the street to increase his capacity. Over the
next decade, he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the
basic cooking technique that is still used today.
In 1955, confident of the quality of his fried chicken, the Colonel devoted
himself to developing his chicken franchising business. Less than 10 years
later, Sanders had more than 600 KFC franchises in the U.S. and Canada,
and in 1964 he sold his interest in the U.S. company for $2 million to a
group of investors including John Y. Brown Jr. (who later became governor
of Kentucky).
Until he was fatally stricken with leukemia in 1980 at the age of 90, the
Colonel traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting KFC restaurants around the
world. His likeness continues to appear on millions of buckets and on
thousands of restaurants in more than 100 countries around the world.

Not bad for a man who started from scratch at retirement age.

Colonel Sanders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Colonel Sanders

Sanders in October 1972

Born

Harland David Sanders

September 9, 1890
Henryville, Indiana, United
States

Died

December 16, 1980 (aged 90)

Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.

Cause of
death

Complications
from pneumoniaand leukemia

Nationality

American

Education

La Salle Extension University

Occupation

Businessman

Board
member of

Kentucky Fried
Chicken(founder)

Religion

Disciples of Christ

Spouse(s)

Josephine King (divorced)

Claudia Price

Children

Harland David Sanders, Jr.

Margaret Sanders
Mildred Sanders Ruggles

Parents

Wilbur David Sanders

Margaret Ann Sanders (ne
Dunlevy)[1]

Signature
Colonel Harland David Sanders[a] (September 9, 1890 December 16,
1980) was an American businessman, best known for founding Kentucky
Fried Chicken (KFC), and later acting as the company's goodwill
ambassador and symbol.
Sanders held a number of jobs in his early life, such as
a fireman, insurance salesman and running filling stations. He began
selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky,
during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of the

restaurant franchising concept, and the first KFC franchise opened in Utah
in 1952. The company's rapid expansion across the United States and
overseas saw it overwhelm him however, and in 1964 he sold the company
to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown, Jr. and Jack C. Massey for $2
million.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life and education

2 Early career

3 Later career

4 Public image

5 Death

6 Legacy

7 Footnotes

8 Further reading

9 See also

10 External links
Early life and education[edit]
Sanders was born on September 9, 1890 in a four-room house located 3
miles (5 km) east of Henryville, Indiana.[2] He was the oldest of three
children born to Wilbur David and Margaret Ann (ne Dunlevy) Sanders.
[2]
The family attended the Advent Christian Church.[3] The family were of
mostly Irish and English ancestry.
His father was a mild and affectionate man who worked his 80 acre farm,
until he broke his leg after a fall.[2] He then worked as a butcher in
Henryville for two years.[2] One summer afternoon in 1895, he came home
with a fever and died later that day.[2] Sanders' mother obtained work in a

tomato-canning factory; and the young Harland was required to look after
and cook for his siblings.[2]When he was 10 he began to work as a
farmhand for local farmers Charlie Norris and Henry Monk.
Sanders' mother remarried in 1902, and the family moved to Greenwood,
Indiana.[4] Sanders had a tumultuous relationship with his stepfather, and in
1903 he dropped out of school, and went to live and work on a nearby
farm.[4] He then took a job painting horse carriages in Indianapolis.[4] When
he was 14 he moved to southern Indiana to work as a farmhand for Sam
Wilson for two years.[4] In 1906, with his mother's approval, he left the area
to live with his uncle in New Albany, Indiana.[5] His uncle worked for
the streetcarcompany, and secured Sanders a job as a conductor.[6]
Early career[edit]
Sanders falsified his date of birth and enlisted in the United States Army in
November 1906, completing his service commitment as ateamster in Cuba.
[5]
He was honorably discharged after three months and in 1907 moved
to Sheffield, Alabama, where an uncle lived.[5] There, he met his brother
Clarence who had also moved there in order to escape his stepfather.
[5]
The uncle worked for the Southern Railroad, and secured Sanders a job
there as a blacksmith's helper in the workshops. [4] After two months,
Sanders moved to Jasper, Alabama where he got a job cleaning out the
ash pans of trains from the Northern Alabama Railroad (a division of the
Southern Railroad) when they had finished their run. [4] Sanders progressed
to become a fireman at the age of 16.[4]
In 1909 Sanders found laboring work with the Norfolk and Western
Railway.[4] Whilst working on the railroad, he met Josephine King of Jasper,
Alabama, and they were married shortly afterwards. They would go on to
have a son, Harland, Jr., who died young in 1932 from infected tonsils, and
two daughters, Margaret Sanders and Mildred Sanders Ruggles. [7][8] He
then found work as a fireman on the Illinois Central Railroad, and he and
his family moved to Jackson, Tennessee.[4] Meanwhile, Sanders studied law
by correspondence at night through the La Salle Extension University.
[4]
Sanders lost his job at Illinois after brawling with a work colleague.
[9]
While Sanders moved to work for theRock Island Railroad, Josephine
and the children went to live with her parents. [4] After a while, Sanders
began to practice law in Little Rock for three years, and he earned enough
fees for his family to move with him.[4] His legal career ended after he got
engaged in a courtroom brawl with his own client. [10]

After that, Sanders moved back with his mother in Henryville, and went to
work as a laborer on the Pennsylvania Railroad.[4] In 1916, the family
moved to Jeffersonville, where Sanders got a job selling life insurance for
the Prudential Life Insurance Company.[4] Sanders was eventually fired for
insubordination.[11] He moved to Louisville and got a salesman job
with Mutual Benefit Life of New Jersey.[11]
In 1920, Sanders established a ferry boat company, which operated a boat
on the Ohio River between Jeffersonville and Louisville.[4] He canvassed for
funding, becoming a minority shareholder himself, and was appointed
secretary of the company.[4] The ferry was an instant success.[12] In around
1922 he took a job as secretary at the Chamber of
Commerce in Columbus, Indiana.[4] He admitted to not being very good at
the job, and resigned after less than a year.[4] Sanders cashed in his ferry
boat company shares for $22,000 and used the money to establish a
company manufacturing acetylene lamps.[4] The venture failed
after Delco introduced an electric lamp that they sold on credit.
Sanders moved to Winchester, Kentucky, to work as a salesman for
the Michelin Tire Company.[4] He lost his job in 1924 when Michelin closed
their New Jersey manufacturing plant.[13] In 1924, by chance, he met the
general manager of Standard Oil of Kentucky, who asked him to run
a service station in Nicholasville.[4] In 1930, the station closed as a result of
the Great Depression.[14]
Later career[edit]

The restaurant in Corbin, Kentuckywhere Colonel Sanders developed

Kentucky Fried Chicken

The world's first KFC franchise, located in South Salt Lake, Utah
In 1930, the Shell Oil Company offered Sanders a service station in Corbin,
Kentucky rent free, in return for paying them a percentage of sales.
[4]
Sanders began to serve chicken dishes and other meals such as country
ham and steaks.[15] Since he did not have a restaurant, he served the
customers in his adjacent living quarters. He was commissioned as
a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 by Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon. His local
popularity grew, and in 1939 food critic Duncan Hines visited Sanders's
restaurant and included it in Adventures in Good Eating, his guide to
restaurants throughout the US. The entry read:
Corbin, KY. Sanders Court and Caf
41 Jct. with 25, 25 E. Mi. N. of Corbin. Open all year except Xmas.
A very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls and the Great
Smokies. Continuous 24-hour service. Sizzling steaks, fried chicken,
country ham, hot biscuits. L. 50 to $1; D., 60 to $1
In July 1939 Sanders acquired a motel in Asheville, North Carolina.[16] His
Corbin restaurant and motel was destroyed in a fire in November 1939, and
Sanders had it rebuilt as a motel with a 140 seat restaurant. [16] By July
1940, Sanders had finalized his "Secret Recipe" for frying chicken in
a pressure fryer that cooked the chicken faster than pan frying. As the
United States entered World War II in December 1941, gas was rationed,
and as the tourists dried up, Sanders was forced to close his Asheville
motel. He went to work as a supervisor in Seattle until the latter part of
1942.[4] He later ran cafeterias for the government at an Ordinance Works
in Tennessee, followed by a job as an assistant manager at a cafeteria
in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.[4]
He left his mistress, Claudia Ledington-Price, as manager of the Corbin
restaurant and motel.[4] In 1942 he sold the Asheville business.[4]In 1947, he
and Josephine divorced and Sanders married Claudia in 1949, as he had
long desired.[17] Sanders was "re-commissioned" as a Kentucky Colonel in
1949 by his friend, Governor Lawrence Wetherby.[18]
In 1952, Sanders franchised "Kentucky Fried Chicken" for the first time,
to Pete Harman of South Salt Lake, Utah, the operator of one of that city's
largest restaurants.[19] In the first year of selling the product, restaurant
sales more than tripled, with 75% of the increase coming from sales of fried
chicken.[20] For Harman, the addition of fried chicken was a way of
differentiating his restaurant from competitors; in Utah, a product hailing
from Kentucky was unique and evoked imagery of Southern hospitality.

[21]

Don Anderson, a sign painter hired by Harman, coined the

name Kentucky Fried Chicken.[21]

Sanders signing his autograph, 1974.

At age 65 (around 1955), Sanders' sold his Corbin outlet after the
new Interstate 75 reduced his restaurant's customer traffic.[22][23] Sanders
decided to begin to franchise his chicken concept in earnest, and traveled
the US looking for suitable restaurants. After closing the Corbin site,
Sanders and his wife Claudia opened a new restaurant and company
headquarters in Shelbyville in 1959.[24]
The franchise approach became highly successful; KFC was one of the first
fast food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada and
later in England, Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. The company's
rapid expansion to more than 600 locations became overwhelming for the
aging Sanders. In 1964 he sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for
$2 million to a partnership of Kentucky businessmen headed byJohn Y.
Brown, Jr. (a then-29-year-old lawyer and future governor of Kentucky)
and Jack C. Massey (a venture capitalist and entrepreneur), and he
became a salaried brand ambassador. The initial deal did not include the
Canadian operations (which Sanders retained) or the franchising rights in
England, Florida, Utah, and Montana (which Sanders had already sold to
others).[25]
In 1965 Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario to oversee his Canadian
franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees both in
Canada and in the U.S. Sanders bought and lived in a bungalow at 1337
Melton Drive in the Lakeview area of Mississauga from 1965 to 1980.[26] In

September 1970 he and his wife were baptized in the Jordan River.[27] He
also befriended Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell.[27]
Sanders and his wife reopened their Shelbyville restaurant as "Claudia
Sanders, The Colonel's Lady" and served KFC-style chicken there as part
of a full-service dinner menu, and talked about expanding the restaurant
into a chain.[28] He was sued by the company for it.[28][29]
In 1973, he sued Heublein Inc.the then parent company of Kentucky
Fried Chickenover the alleged misuse of his image in promoting products
he had not helped develop. In 1975, Heublein Inc. unsuccessfully sued
Sanders for libel after he publicly described their gravy as "wallpaper paste"
to which "sludge" was added.[30]
After reaching a settlement with Heublein, he sold the Colonel's Lady
restaurant, and it has continued to operate since then (currently as the
"Claudia Sanders Dinner House").[28][29] It serves his "original recipe" fried
chicken as part of its (non-fast-food) dinner menu, and it is the only nonKFC restaurant that serves an authorized version of the fried chicken
recipe.[31][32]
Public image[edit]
After being recommissioned as a Kentucky colonel in 1950 by
Governor Lawrence Wetherby, Sanders began to dress the part, growing a
goatee and wearing a black frock coat(later switching to a white suit),
a string tie, and referring to himself as "Colonel".[18] His associates went
along with the title change, "jokingly at first and then in earnest", according
to biographer Josh Ozersky.[22]
He never wore anything else in public during the last 20 years of his life,
using a heavy wool suit in the winter and a light cotton suit in the summer.
[22]
He bleached his mustache and goatee to match his white hair.[17]
Death[edit]

Gravesite of Harland Sanders.

Sanders remains the official face of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and appears
on its logo
Sanders later used his stock holdings to create the Colonel Harland
Sanders Trust and Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization,
which used the proceeds to aid charities and fund scholarships. His trusts
continue to donate money to groups like the Trillium Health Care Centre; a
wing of their building specializes in women's and children's care and has
been named after him.[33] The Sidney, British Columbiabased foundation
granted over $1,000,000 in 2007, according to its 2007 tax return. [34]
Sanders was diagnosed with acute leukemia in June 1980.[7][35] He died at
Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky of pneumonia on December 16,
1980 at the age of 90.[36][37][38] His body lay in state in the rotunda of
the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort after a funeral service at
the Southern Baptist SeminaryChapel, which was attended by more than
1,000 people. He was buried in his characteristic white suit and black
western string tie in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
By the time of his death, there were an estimated 6,000 KFC outlets in 48
different countries worldwide, with $2 billion of sales annually.[39]
Legacy[edit]
Since his death, Sanders has been portrayed by voice actors in KFC
commercials in radio and an animated version of him has been used for
television commercials.
The Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball league has developed
an urban legend of the "Curse of the Colonel". A statue of Colonel Sanders
was thrown into a river and lost during a 1985 fan celebration, and

(according to the legend) the "curse" has caused Japan's Hanshin Tigers to
perform poorly since the incident.[40]
One of Colonel Sanders' white suits and black clip-on bow-ties were sold at
auction for $21,510 by Heritage Auctions on June 22, 2013.[41] The suit had
been given to Cincinnatiresident Mike Morris by Sanders, who was close to
Morris's family. The Morris family house was purchased by Col. Sanders,
and Sanders lived with the family for six months. [42]The suit was purchased
by Kentucky Fried Chicken of Japan president Maseo "Charlie" Watanabe.
Watanabe put on the famous suit after placing the winning bid at the
auction event in Dallas, Texas.
In 2011, a manuscript of a book on cooking that Sanders apparently wrote
in the mid-1960s was found in KFC archives. It includes some cooking
recipes from Sanders as well as anecdotes and life lessons. KFC said it
was planning to try some of the recipes and to publish the 200-page
manuscript online.[43][44]

After many years of serving his secret fried chicken recipe in his
local restaurant, Colonel Harland Sanders found himself in need
of a new career. At the age of 65, he began to collect his social
security check of about $100 as he wondered how he was going
to survive financially.
Colonel Sanders Background
Growing up in Indiana, household responsibilities were often left
to him while his mother worked to support the family after his
father's early death. This is how he developed his keen cooking
skills as he helped his mother take care of the other children in
his family.

Several different jobs later, Sanders began his entrepreneurial

career running a service station in Kentucky while serving his
special chicken in a dining area within. As business grew, he
relocated to a restaurant close by in order to make his original
recipe with its blend of eleven herbs and spices accessible to even
more customers. He also added a motel to the business.
In 1935, at forty-five years old, Sanders was dubbed a Kentucky
Colonel by the Governor, in recognition of his fabulous cooking
skills. Subsequently, in 1940 Sanders created his well-known
"Original Recipe."
Colonel Sanders New Cooking Technique
Sanders originally prepared his chicken in an iron skillet but soon
realized that was not efficient in a restaurant setting. In order to
decrease the wait time for his customers, Sanders modified his
cooking procedure by making use of a pressure fryer.
Colonel Sanders Entrepreneurial Drive
The Sanders Court & Caf catered mainly to travelers on their
way to Florida through the town of Corbin, Kentucky. However, in
the early 1950's, a new interstate was in the works that would
cause a great loss in business, forcing Sanders to retire and sell
his restaurant.
However, the government check was small and Sanders wasn't
willing to just sit still and try to make due. He believed there was
an opportunity to market his chicken to restaurant owners across
the U.S.
In his travels, he was rejected on many occasions, laughed at
about his attire of his starched white shirt and white pants.
However, Sanders persevered, and after a little over 1,000 visits,
he finally persuaded Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah to

partner with him. They launched the first "Kentucky Fried

Chicken" site in 1952.
In the early 1960's there were over 600 franchised locations in
the U.S. and Canada selling the delectable chicken. Subsequently,
in 1964 Sanders sold the franchising operation for $2 million. The
franchise has been sold three other times since then and
continues to be a well-known successful business.

Col. Harland Sanders: American Fast Food Pioneer

The Story of Colonel Sanders
In the beginning...
Colonel Harland Sanders, born September 9,
1890, actively began franchising his chicken
business at the age of 65. Now, the Kentucky Fried
Chicken business he started has grown to be one
of the largest retail food service systems in the
world. And Colonel Sanders, a quick service
restaurant pioneer, has become a symbol of
entrepreneurial spirit.
More than two billion of the Colonel's "finger lickin'
good" chicken dinners are served annually. And not
just in North America. The Colonel's cooking is
available in more than 82 countries around the
world.

When the Colonel was six, his father died. His mother was forced to go to
work, and young Harland had to take care of his three-year-old brother and
baby sister. This meant doing much of the family cooking. By the age of
seven, he was a master of a score of regional dishes.
At age 10, he got his first job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month.
When he was 12, his mother remarried and he left his home near
Henryville, Ind., for a job on a farm in Greenwood, Ind. He held a series of
jobs over the next few years, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in
New Albany, Ind., and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for six
months in Cuba.
After that he was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence,
practiced in justice of the peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio
River steamboat ferry, sold tires, and operated service stations. When he
was 40, the Colonel began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his
service station in Corbin, Ky. He didn't have a restaurant then, but served
folks on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station.
As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to
a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the next nine years,
he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking
technique that is still used today.
As we grew...
Sander's fame grew. Governor Ruby Laffoon made him a Kentucky Colonel
in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state's cuisine. And in
1939, his establishment was first listed in Duncan Hines' "Adventures in
Good Eating."
In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the
town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, the Colonel auctioned off
his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105
Social Security checks.
Confident of the quality of his fried chicken, the Colonel devoted himself to
the chicken franchising business that he started in 1952. He traveled
across the country by car from restaurant to restaurant, cooking batches of
chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the reaction was
favorable, he entered into a handshake agreement on a deal that stipulated

a payment to him of a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold. By 1964,
Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in
the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his interest in the U.S.
company for $2 million to a group of investors including John Y. Brown Jr.,
who later was governor of Kentucky from 1980 to 1984. The Colonel
remained a public spokesman for the company. In 1976, an independent
survey ranked the Colonel as the world's second most recognizable
celebrity.
Under the new owners, Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation grew rapidly. It
went public on March 17, 1966, and was listed on the New York Stock
Exchange on January 16, 1969. More than 3,500 franchised and companyowned restaurants were in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc.
acquired KFC Corporation on July 8, 1971, for $285 million.
Kentucky Fried Chicken became a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries,
Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.), when Heublein Inc. was acquired by
Reynolds in 1982. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco,
Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million.
In January 1997, PepsiCo, Inc. announced the spin-off of its quick service
restaurants -- KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut -- into an independent
restaurant company. The spin-off should be completed during the fourth
quarter 1997. The new restaurant company, TRICON Global Restaurants,
Inc., will be the world's largest restaurant system with more than 29,500
KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants in nearly 100 countries and
territories.
Until he was fatally stricken with leukemia in 1980 at the age of 90, the
Colonel traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC empire he founded.
And it all began with a 65-year-old gentleman who used his $105 Social
Security check to start a business.

When I read last week that a majority of Americans ages 18 to 25 didn't

know who Colonel Sanders was, I was shocked. According to USA Today,
61% of respondents didn't know who the guy with the beard in the KFC logo
was. What? They don't know who the most famous chicken icon in the
world is? A face that says "fried chicken" to hungry people from China to
Peru?
For anyone who grew up in America in the second half of the 20th century,
the Colonel was a true icon. You didn't need to be able to read to know who
he was; you didn't even need to watch TV. Anyone who drove a mile in any
direction would see his beaming, grandfatherly visage and white suit and
know that Kentucky Fried Chicken could be found there. Maybe not
everybody knew that he was the chain's founder or remembered his TV
commercials from the '60s and '70s, when he talked about how each piece
was dipped in an "egg warsh" before frying. But, at least, they knew he was
real. Half of the young adults in the survey, which was ordered up by the
chain, assumed that he was the creation of KFC, rather than the other way
around.
(See TIME's photo-essay on food as pop culture.)
I find this very disturbing. And not because I'm in the process of writing a
book about Colonel Sanders. I don't expect anybody under 25 to read it
or anybody else, for that matter. But it hurts me as an American to think
that so many people lack such a basic piece of cultural information. I mean,
it's one thing to not know who Thomas Jefferson was or when the Vietnam
War ended. College professors brace themselves for the ignorance of their
charges and, in fact, have a good laugh about it every year, when two
academics in Wisconsin circulate, with much fanfare, a list of how much the
incoming freshmen don't know.
But by not knowing that Harland David Sanders was an actual man, who
lived an actual life, people miss out on more than they might imagine. For
one thing, the Colonel wasn't just a fast-food baron who represented his
company on TV, the way Dave Thomas (a Sanders protg) later did.
Sanders was the living embodiment of what his food supposedly stood for.
His white suit wasn't the invention of a marketing committee; he wore it

every day and was never seen in public for the last 20 years of his life in
anything else. (He had a heavy wool one for winter and a lighter cotton one
for summer.) He was a failure who got fired from a dozen jobs before
starting his restaurant, and then failed at that when he went out of business
and found himself broke at the age of 65. He drove around in a Cadillac
with his face painted on the side before anybody knew who he was,
pleading with the owners of run-down diners to use his recipe and give him
a nickel commission on each chicken. He slept in the back of the car and
made handshake deals. His first marriage was a difficult one, so he divorced
his wife after 39 years. (His second marriage was much happier.) He once
shot a man in a gun battle, but was never charged as the other guy started
it. He was a lawyer who once assaulted his own client in court. He was
indeed a Kentucky Colonel, an honorary title given to him by not one but
two governors. He was a Rotarian and a Presbyterian, and he deserves to be
remembered at least for having a verifiable existence.
(See pictures of what the world eats.)
But after he died, at the age of 90 in 1980, his image was up for grabs. By
the 1980s, the Old South was not the most appealing image for a national
chain. Nor was fried chicken any longer the perfect food to feed your family
in a time when calorie-counting and healthy choices were already becoming
omnipresent concerns. The Colonel was for a time even transformed into
a frisky cartoon character who danced around, dunked basketballs and
affected hip-hop lingo when he wasn't plugging Pokmon toys. Later,
perhaps in a fit of remorse, KFC outfitted him in an apron to remind the
world of his culinary skill.
Since the Colonel's death, his company has changed its name, dropping
Kentucky Fried Chicken for the more generic and unthreatening initials
KFC, even going so far as to suggest that the letters stood for "Kitchen
Fresh Chicken." Nobody was fooled. Frequently KFC has wanted to shift its
identity to something more in keeping with the times, but it is yoked to the
Colonel and his fried legacy. And its inability to change is, in fact, the best
thing about it. There is no "original recipe" for McDonald's; that company
can change the way it makes burgers tomorrow, just like it has in the past.
The food at Taco Bell doesn't reference any particular place or time; there's
nobody to recognize, no frame of reference to miss. Many KFC franchisees,
particularly in the South, wish that Yum! Brands, KFC's parent, would see

that, and these franchisees feel so strongly about the matter that they have
sued KFC. They feel that KFC'S rebranding efforts hurt the brand, and
couldn't care less if the chain's core product is "relevant," as KFC puts it.
It's hard not to see at least some grounds for their position. After all,
Colonel Sanders' 11 secret herbs and spices are their greatest asset. That
recipe is kept in a vault deep inside corporate headquarters in Lexington,
Ky., surrounded by motion detectors and surveillance cameras; only two
executives have access to it at any time. Inside that vault, those spices are
written on a piece of notebook paper, in pencil, in Sanders' own hand. I'm
told that the paper is yellowing and the handwriting, by now, is faint. That
fragile connection to a real man and a real vision is what makes KFC
unique. I wish more people would appreciate that.
Ozersky is a James Beard Awardwinning food writer and the author
of The Hamburger: A History. His food video site, Ozersky.TV, is updated
daily. He is currently at work on a biography of Colonel Sanders. Taste of
America, Ozersky's food column for TIME.com, appears every
Wednesday.

Colonel Harland Sanders Biography

Chef (18901980)

QUICK FACTS
NAME
Colonel Harland Sanders
OCCUPATION

Chef
BIRTH DATE
September 9, 1890
DEATH DATE
December 16, 1980
PLACE OF BIRTH
Henryville, Indiana
PLACE OF DEATH
Louisville, Kentucky
AKA
Harland Sanders
Colonel Harland Sanders
Colonel Sanders

FULL NAME
Harland David Sanders
SYNOPSIS
EARLY LIFE AND CAREER
KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN IS BORN
LATER YEARS
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Colonel Sanders is best known for creating a fried chicken recipe that would
become the world's fast-food chicken chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken.
IN THESE GROUPS

FAMOUS VIRGOANS
FAMOUS PEOPLE BORN IN HENRYVILLE
FAMOUS PEOPLE BORN IN UNITED STATES
FAMOUS PEOPLE BORN ON SEPTEMBER 9
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QUOTES
There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any
business from there.

Colonel Harland Sanders

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Colonel Sanders - Mini Bio (TV-14; 02:12) Colonel Sanders is synonymous with
Kentucky Fried Chicken. He created the recipe, franchised it, and earned
worldwide fame.

Synopsis
Colonel Harland Sanders was born on September 9, 1890, in Henryville, Indiana.
At the age of 40, Sanders was running a popular Kentucky service station that also
served foodso popular, in fact, that the governor of Kentucky designated him a
Kentucky colonel. Eventually, Sanders focused on franchising his fried chicken
business around the country, collecting a payment for each chicken sold. The
company went on to become the world's largest fast-food chicken chain, Kentucky
Fried Chicken. Sanders died in Louisville, Kentucky, on December 16, 1980.

Early Life and Career

Best known for founding the fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel
Harland David Sanders was born on September 9, 1890, in Henryville, Indiana.
After his father died when he was 6 years old, Sanders became responsible for
feeding and taking care of his younger brother and sister. Beginning at the age of
10, he held down numerous jobs, including farmer, streetcar conductor, railroad
fireman and insurance salesman.

At age 40, Sanders was running a service station in Kentucky, where he would also
feed hungry travelers. Sanders eventually moved his operation to a restaurant
across the street, and featured a fried chicken so notable that he was named a
Kentucky colonel in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon.
Kentucky Fried Chicken is Born
After closing the restaurant in 1952, Sanders devoted himself to franchising his
chicken business. He traveled across the country, cooking batches of chicken from
restaurant to restaurant, striking deals that paid him a nickel for every chicken the
restaurant sold. In 1964, with more than 600 franchised outlets, he sold his interest
in the company for $2 million to a group of investors.
Kentucky Fried Chicken went public in 1966 and was listed on the New York
Stock Exchange in 1969. More than 3,500 franchised and company-owned
restaurants were in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc. acquired KFC
Corporation in 1971for $285 million. KFC became a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds
Industries, Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.), when Heublein Inc. was acquired by
Reynolds in 1982. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by
PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million.

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any
business from there.
Colonel Harland Sanders