Harland Sanders
Harland Sanders was born on an Indiana farm, which his father struggled to operate after breaking a leg, eventually taking work as a butcher in Henryville, Indiana. When his father died in 1895 Harland’s mother found work in a cannery and the upkeep of the farmhouse and his two younger siblings became the boy’s responsibility. Sanders learned to cook before he was seven, by the age of ten he was working as a farmhand. Their mother was often gone for long periods of time and Sanders and his siblings found food as they could. When his mother remarried in 1902, Sanders found his new stepfather incompatible, and by 13 he was living on his own, dropping out of school in the seventh grade.
Sanders worked as a farmhand, a painter, and eventually as a streetcar conductor in New Albany, Indiana. In 1906 he lied about his age and joined the army, in which he served as a teamster. After being discharged the following year he went to Alabama, where an uncle helped him get a job with the Southern Railway. In 1909 he went to work for the Norfolk and Western Railway, rising to the position of fireman. Married and with three children, Sanders studied law at night via correspondence courses and eventually practiced law in Little Rock, his legal career ending after a courtroom brawl with his own client.
Sanders sold insurance for a time, operated a ferry boat across the Ohio River to Louisville, and used the proceeds to start a business manufacturing lamps, which failed. He then sold tires, losing that job in 1924, and then operated a gasoline station in Nicholasville, Kentucky. When that station was closed Sanders was offered another by the Shell Company in North Corbin, KY. At that station, Sanders began offering meals to customers in the portion of the station which was set aside as his living quarters. He purchased a motel in Asheville, North Carolina and when his North Corbin gas station was destroyed in a fire he rebuilt the property as a restaurant.
World War 2 ended tourism due to gas rationing and Sanders lost his motel, and after serving as a cafeteria manager for the government he returned to the North Corbin restaurant and motel, which his mistress had managed in his absence. In 1952 Sanders franchised his recipe for frying chicken in pressure fryers and the first Kentucky Fried Chicken opened in Salt Lake City. Sanders did not create the name, the purchaser of the first restaurant, Pete Harman, did. Sanders closed his North Corbin operation and relocated the company headquarters to Shelbyville, KY in 1959. Through the early years of the 1960s KFC franchises grew to over 600, including in Canada, Mexico, and England.
In 1964 the seventy-three year old Sanders sold the company for $2 million, and continued to earn royalties and appearance fees as the company’s spokesman and symbol. He later became embroiled in legal disputes with the company and after changes were made to the menu and some of the recipes used – particularly gravy – Sanders was a vocal critic of the company and the food. He also sued the company for the use of the Colonel Sanders image with products he did not create. Sanders died in 1980 at the age of 90, and was buried in Louisville. At the time of his death there were more than 6,000 KFC stores in 48 countries around the world.