In the beginning...
Colonel Harland Sanders, born September 9,
1890, actively began franchising his chicken business at the age
of 65. Now, the Kentucky Fried Chicken® business he started has
grown to be one of the largest retail food service systems in the
world. And Colonel Sanders, a quick service restaurant pioneer,
has become a symbol of entrepreneurial spirit.
More than two billion of the Colonel's
"finger lickin' good" chicken dinners are served
annually. And not just in North America. The Colonel's cooking is
available in more than 82 countries 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 a score of regional dishes.
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 New
Albany, Ind., and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for
six months in Cuba.
After that he was a railroad fireman,
studied law by correspondence, practiced in justice of the peace
courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry,
sold tires, and operated service stations. When he was 40, the
Colonel began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his
service station in Corbin, Ky. 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.
As we grew...
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
checks.
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 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.
Under the new owners, Kentucky Fried
Chicken Corporation grew rapidly. It went public on March 17,
1966, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January
16, 1969. More than 3,500 franchised and company-owned
restaurants were in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc.
acquired KFC Corporation on July 8, 1971, for $285 million.
Kentucky Fried Chicken became a subsidiary
of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.), when
Heublein Inc. was acquired by Reynolds in 1982. KFC was acquired
in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for
approximately $840 million.
In January 1997, PepsiCo, Inc. announced
the spin-off of its quick service restaurants -- KFC, Taco Bell
and Pizza Hut -- into an independent restaurant company. The
spin-off should be completed during the fourth quarter 1997. The
new restaurant company, TRICON Global Restaurants, Inc., will be
the world's largest restaurant system with more than 29,500 KFC,
Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants in nearly 100 countries and
territories.
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 empire he founded.
And it all began with a 65-year-old
gentleman who used his $105 Social Security check to start a
business.
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