Colonel Sanders

Harland Sanders, the oldest of three children, was born on September 9, 1890 to Wilbert and Margaret Ann Sanders of Henryville, Indiana, farming community in the southernmost part of the state.

Colonel Harland Sanders is famous for founding and developing Kentucky Fried Chicken an achievement that helped change the way of Americans.

His father died when he was six years old, and because his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family.

Sanders early life was spent doing a variety of jobs as farmhand, streetcar conductor, private in the military in Cuba and railroad fireman.

He and his wife then, worked in the tiny little restaurant cooking and washing dishes until he retired at the age of 65.

He borrowed $87.00 from bank. He bought some empty boxes and several chickens returned home and cooked the chickens with his special little recipe in which he had perfected over the years. Since he did not have a restaurant, he served customers in his living quarters in the servis stations.

By 1930 Sanders was operating a service station on Highway 25 in Corbin, Kentucky. Soon he became as famous for his home cooking as for the service at his filling station.

He then began experimenting finding a way to make fried chicken faster and tastier by using the newly invented pressure cooker.

Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon gave him the honorary title ‘Kentucky Colonel’ in 1935. Sanders choose to call himself ‘Colonel’ and to dress in a stereotypical Southern gentleman costume as a way of self promotion.

Colonel Sanders sold his company the Kentucky Fired Chicken Corporation in 1964 but remained inseparable from his chicken. At the age of 88 Colonel Sanders was a multi-millionaire.

Colonel Sanders died on December 16, 1980.
Colonel Sanders