“I Always Could Cook”
In the early 1930s, travelers pulling into Harland Sanders’s service station in North Corbin, Kentucky, had little to look forward to beyond fuel and a windshield wipe. One customer’s frustration—“Damn! There ain’t a decent place around here to eat!”—struck a chord with Sanders.
Remembering his knack for cooking, Sanders cleared out a small room at the back of the station, laid linoleum on the floor, and set a dining table from his own home. He began serving family-style meals: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, country ham, biscuits. Word spread quickly.
The Colonel’s Road to Reinvention
Before the fried chicken, Sanders had drifted across jobs: farmhand, streetcar conductor, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, lawyer, ferryboat operator, and more. He was born in 1890 near Henryville, Indiana, lost his father at age five, and left home at ten.
He built and lost businesses multiple times. In 1935, Kentucky’s governor awarded him the honorary title “Colonel.” By 1939, food critic Duncan Hines was recommending Sanders’s café, which grew to seat over 140 guests. But when a federal highway bypassed Corbin in the 1950s, traffic dried up. Sanders sold his café at a loss and lived on Social Security—at age 65.
Franchising Fried Chicken
In 1952, Sanders met Salt Lake City restaurateur Pete Harman, who became the first to franchise “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Harman introduced buckets, carryout meals, and slogans like “finger-lickin’ good.” After losing his Corbin café, Sanders began crisscrossing America, cooking sample meals in mom-and-pop diners using his pressure cookers and secret seasoning blend.
He slept in his car, selling franchise rights one restaurant at a time. His deal: four to five cents per chicken sold. By 1964, Sanders had sold over 600 franchises and accepted a $2 million offer for the business.
Buckets, Cookers, and a Brand Built to Travel
KFC grew rapidly under its new owners, eventually becoming one of the most recognized fast-food chains in the world. Sanders remained the face of the brand into his later years, clad in a white suit and black string tie.
Sanders died in 1980 at age 90; Harman in 2014 at age 95. By then, KFC had expanded to nearly 20,000 locations globally—including one that opened in Burma in 2015, more than 8,000 miles from where it all began in Corbin.
A frustrated traveler in 1930s Kentucky exclaimed there was nowhere decent to eat.
Harland Sanders, a gas station owner, took it to heart.
With one table and a few chairs, he started serving fried chicken—unaware this modest act would spark a global fast-food empire…🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/wm4TXff1Kf
— Detective Tiger's Stories (@TigerDetective) June 17, 2025