Colonel
Sanders - Harland David Sanders (a.k.a. "Colonel
Sanders") was a grandfatherly southern gentleman who opened what
would be the first in a chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken
restaurants in Corbin, Kentucky in 1932 in a lunchroom behind
his gas station. In 1935 Kentucky Governor Rudy Laffoon so
liked Sanders' food that he bestowed upon him the honorary title
of a Kentucky Colonel. By 1937, Sander's Cafe seated 142
customers who often came for the Colonel's specially prepared
southern fried chicken which contained a "secret blend of eleven
herbs and spices." His trademark formula (which the Colonel
claimed could be found on everybody's kitchen shelves at home)
became the most guarded one in history of advertising (outside
of the Coca-Cola formula). In 1939, the Colonel's restaurant was
listed in Duncan Hines (a renown food critic) guidebook
Adventures in Good Eating. When a new interstate highway
threatened to put Sander's chicken operation out of business, he
sold his business. In 1952, using his monthly $105 social
security check as his only capital, the Colonel traveled America
making deals to sell his fried chicken on a franchise basis.
Around the same time, the Colonel began to dress the part in his
now famous white suit, black string tie and white goatee beard.
On February 18, 1964 Sanders sold his franchised chicken
business (more than
600 outlets in the United States and Canada) for
$2 million to a group of investors
but was retained on salary as spokesman for Kentucky Fried
Chicken often appearing in television commercials. One such TV
spot in the 1960s showed an angry housewife who kidnapped the
Colonel, interrogated him in an abandoned warehouse and demanded
he give up his secret recipe. Of course, he didn't. In 1975,
Colonel Sanders was sued unsuccessfully for libel by Heublein
Incorporated when he publicly referred to Kentucky Fried Chicken
gravy as "sludge" and that it had a "wallpaper taste." He was
being paid $250,000 a year to promote KFC chicken at the time.
In 1976, an
independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world's second most
recognizable celebrity.
When not representing KFC, the Colonel contributed money to a
number of charities and community organization and at the age of
eighty-seven, he testified against the mandatory retirement
before a Select Subcommittee on Aging. Born
September 9, 1890,
Harland Sanders, died of leukemia
on
December
16, 1980 at the age of 90. He was buried in Louisville's Cave
Hill Cemetery. His legacy has now been franchised worldwide to
new generations who still find his chicken "Finger Lickin'
Good." Heublein Incorporated who purchased the Kentucky Fried
Chicken franchise in 1971, sold the company to Pepsico in
October 1986 for
approximately $840 million
(later spun off
as part of Yum! Brands in 2002). TRIVIA NOTE: On the 3/6/91
installment of THE TONIGHT SHOW Johnny Carson did a comedy
sketch featuring the "last words" uttered by famous people
before they died. Reportedly, Colonel Sanders said: "I have a
confession to make. There are no secret herbs and spices. That
flavor is chicken sweat." The Colonel Harland Sanders museum at
the KFC Headquarters, located west of Interstate 264 (exit 15A)
in Louisville, Kentucky, traces the history of the Colonel's
chicken empire.
