1890–1906: early life Harland David Sanders was born on September 9, 1890, in a four-room house located east of
Henryville, Indiana. He was the oldest of three children born to Wilbur David and Margaret Ann (
née Dunlevy) Sanders. The family attended the
Advent Christian Church. His father was a mild and affectionate man who worked his farm until he broke his leg in a fall. He then worked as a butcher in Henryville for two years. Sanders's mother was a devout Christian and strict parent, continually warning her children of "the evils of alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and whistling on Sundays". Sanders's father died in 1895. His mother got work in a tomato cannery, and the young Harland was left to look after and cook for his siblings. and the family moved to
Greenwood, Indiana. Sanders had a tumultuous relationship with his stepfather. In 1903, at age 12, he dropped out of seventh grade, later stating that "algebra's what drove [him] off", and went to live and work on a nearby farm. His uncle worked for the
streetcar company, and secured Sanders a job as a conductor. In October 1906, age 16, Sanders falsified his date of birth and enlisted in the
United States Army. He completed his service commitment as a wagoner (see
teamster) in
Cuba, and was awarded the
Cuban Pacification Medal (Army). In February 1907, he was honorably discharged and moved to
Sheffield, Alabama, where his uncle lived. There, he met his brother Clarence, who had also moved there in order to escape their stepfather. In 1909, Sanders found laboring work with the
Norfolk and Western Railway. of
Jasper, Alabama, and they were married on June 15, 1909, in Jasper. They had three children: Margaret Josephine Sanders, born March 29, 1910, in
Jasper, Alabama, and died October 19, 2001, in
West Palm Beach, Florida; Harland David Sanders Jr., born on April 23, 1912, in
Tuscumbia, Alabama, and died on September 15, 1932, in
Martinsville, Indiana, from infected
tonsils; and Mildred Marie Sanders Ruggles, born October 15, 1919, in
Jeffersonville, Indiana, and died September 21, 2010, in
Lexington, Kentucky. Sanders then found work as a fireman on the
Illinois Central Railroad, and he and his family moved to
Jackson, Tennessee. By night, Sanders studied law by correspondence through the
La Salle Extension University. While Sanders moved to work for the
Rock Island Railroad, Josephine and the children went to live with her parents. This period represented a low point for Sanders. As his biographer John Ed Pearce wrote, "[Sanders] had encountered repeated failure largely through bullheadedness, a lack of self-control, impatience, and a self-righteous lack of diplomacy." Following the incident, Sanders was forced to move back in with his mother in Henryville, where he went to work as a laborer on the
Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1916, the family moved to
Jeffersonville, where Sanders got a job selling
life insurance for the
Prudential Life Insurance Company. In 1920, at age 30, Sanders established a ferry boat company, which operated a boat on the
Ohio River between Jeffersonville and Louisville. He canvassed for funding, becoming a minority shareholder, and was appointed secretary of the company. Around 1922 he took a job as a secretary at the
Chamber of Commerce in
Columbus, Indiana. He admitted that he was not very good at the job and resigned after less than a year. Sanders cashed in his ferry boat company shares for $22,000 ($ today) and used the money to establish a company manufacturing
acetylene lamps. In 1924, by chance, he met the general manager of
Standard Oil of Kentucky, who asked him to run a
service station in
Nicholasville.
1930–1952: later career In 1930, the
Shell Oil Company offered Sanders a service station in
North Corbin, Kentucky, rent-free, in return for paying the company a percentage of sales. Initially he served the customers in his adjacent living quarters before opening a restaurant. It was during this period that Sanders was involved in a shootout with Matt Stewart, a local competitor who had painted over a sign directing traffic to Sanders's station. Stewart killed a Shell employee who was with Sanders, and was convicted of murder, eliminating Sanders's competition. Sanders was commissioned as a
Kentucky Colonel in 1935 by Kentucky governor
Ruby Laffoon. His local popularity grew, and, in 1939, food critic
Duncan Hines visited Sanders's restaurant and included it in
Adventures in Good Eating, his guide to restaurants throughout the US. The entry read: In July 1939, Sanders acquired a motel in
Asheville,
North Carolina. In November 1939, his North Corbin restaurant and motel was destroyed in a fire. Sanders had it rebuilt as a motel with a 140-seat restaurant. In July 1940, age 50, Sanders finalized his "
Secret Recipe" for frying chicken in a
pressure fryer that cooked the chicken faster than
pan frying. In 1950, Sanders was "re-commissioned" as a Kentucky Colonel by his friend, Governor
Lawrence Wetherby. In the first year of selling the product, restaurant sales more than tripled, with 75% of the increase coming from sales of fried chicken. For Harman, the addition of fried chicken was a way of differentiating his restaurant from competitors. In Utah, a product hailing from Kentucky was unique and evoked imagery of
Southern hospitality. Don Anderson, a sign painter hired by Harman, coined the name
Kentucky Fried Chicken. After Harman's success, several other restaurant owners franchised the concept and paid Sanders $0.04 per chicken, . Sanders believed that his North Corbin restaurant would remain successful indefinitely; however, he sold it at age 65 after the new
Interstate 75 reduced customer traffic. Left only with his savings and US$105 a month from
Social Security, , Sanders decided to begin to franchise his chicken concept in earnest, and traveled the US looking for suitable restaurants. In 1959, after closing the North Corbin site, Sanders and Claudia opened a new restaurant and company headquarters in
Shelbyville. Often sleeping in the back of his car, Sanders visited restaurants, offered to cook his chicken, and if workers liked it, negotiated franchise rights. Although such visits required much time, eventually potential franchisees began visiting Sanders instead. He ran the company while Claudia mixed and shipped the spices to restaurants. The franchise approach became highly successful; KFC was one of the first fast food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada and later in the UK, Australia, Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. In 1962, Sanders obtained a patent protecting his method of pressure frying chicken, and trademarked the phrase "It's Finger Lickin' Good" in 1963. The company's rapid expansion to more than 600 locations became overwhelming for the aging Sanders. In 1964, then 73 years old, he sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for $2 million ($ million today) to a partnership of Kentucky businessmen headed by
John Y. Brown Jr., a 29-year-old lawyer and future governor of Kentucky, and
Jack C. Massey, a venture capitalist and entrepreneur. Sanders became a salaried brand ambassador. The initial deal did not include the Canadian operations, which Sanders retained, or the franchising rights in the UK, Florida, Utah, and Montana, which Sanders had already sold to others. In 1965, Sanders moved to
Mississauga,
Ontario, a suburb of
Toronto, to oversee his Canadian franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees in Canada and in the US. Sanders bought and lived in a bungalow at 1337 Melton Drive in the
Lakeview area of Mississauga from 1965 until his death in 1980. In September 1970, he and his wife were
baptized in the
Jordan River. He also befriended
Billy Graham and
Jerry Falwell. Sanders remained the company's symbol after selling it, traveling a year on the company's behalf and filming many TV commercials and appearances. He retained much influence over executives and franchisees, who respected his culinary expertise and feared what
The New Yorker described as "the force and variety of his swearing" when a restaurant or the company varied from what executives described as "the ''Colonel's'' chicken". In 1973, Sanders sued
Heublein Inc.—the then parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken—over the alleged misuse of his image in promoting products he had not helped develop. In 1975, Heublein Inc. unsuccessfully sued Sanders for libel after he publicly described their gravy as being "sludge" with a "wallpaper taste". He was sued by the company for it. After reaching a settlement with Heublein, he sold the Colonel's Lady restaurant, and it has continued to operate, currently as the Claudia Sanders Dinner House. Sanders remained critical of Kentucky Fried Chicken's food. In an October 1975 article in the
Louisville Courier-Journal, he told journalist Dan Kauffman: ==Public image and personality==