Colonel Harland Sanders, born on September 9, 1890, actively began franchising his chicken business at the age of 65. Now, the KFC business he started has grown to be one of the largest fast food chains in the world. And Colonel Sanders himself is known the world over. More than a billion of the Colonel's "finger lickin' good" chicken dinners (right Presbyterian like) are served annually. The Colonel's cooking is available in more than 80 countries and territories 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 several regional dishes of the deep south.
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 Indiana and then lying to get into the army, he spent 6 months in Cuba as a soldier at only age 16.
After that he was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence, practiced in local courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tyres, and operated service stations. When he was 40, the Colonel began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, a hicktown in Kentucky. 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. 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 cheques.
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 (5c) 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.
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 restaurants around the world. And it all began with a 65-year-old gentleman who used his $105 Social Security cheque to start a business, which all goes to show you that even an old guy can become famous.
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