Before becoming the world’s second-largest fast-food empire, Kentucky Fried Chicken began with Harland “Colonel” Sanders, who served classic Southern meals at a roadside gas station. Despite passing away in 1980, Sanders remains the instantly recognizable symbol of the brand. His journey to fast-food stardom, however, includes much more than just his famous chicken.
1. His first eatery was inside a gas station.
In 1930, Harland Sanders began feeding hungry truckers from an old family dining table set up in his Corbin, Kentucky service station. Fried chicken wasn’t offered initially due to its lengthy cooking time. Instead, Sanders’s ham and steak meals gained such popularity that he later launched Sanders’ Café across the street, where he began preparing chicken in an iron skillet. By 1935, food critic Duncan Hines had highlighted the café in his road-food guide, and in 1939, Sanders refined his chicken-cooking method using pressure cookers and his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.
2. He injured a competitor in a fatal gunfight.
Sanders, known for his fiery temper, was well-suited for the rough Shell Oil station territory in the Hell’s Half-Acre area. He angered a rival, Matt Stewart of Standard Oil, by painting promotional signs on barns throughout the region. When told Stewart had painted over one again, Sanders, along with two Shell executives, confronted him. Stewart pulled a gun and fatally shot Shell’s district manager Robert Gibson. Sanders returned fire, injuring Stewart in the shoulder. Stewart was later convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years, while Sanders’s charges were dropped.
3. His military service was brief, and his colonel title was honorary.
In 1906, Sanders lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he served briefly in Cuba before an honorable discharge. Later, in 1935, Kentucky’s Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the honorary title of “colonel.” A second honorary commission in 1949 prompted Sanders to adopt the colonel persona—growing facial hair and wearing a black frock coat and string tie. Eventually, he switched to a white suit to better conceal flour stains and bleached his facial hair to match his white hair.
4. Before fried chicken, he delivered babies and practiced law.
Before finding his place in the food industry in his 60s, Sanders had a wide-ranging work history—farmhand, streetcar conductor, and railroad laborer among them. He also pursued law via correspondence and briefly worked in Arkansas courts until a courtroom altercation ended his legal career. Sanders ran a ferry on the Ohio River, sold insurance and auto tires, and during his Corbin years, delivered babies due to a lack of doctors. “There was nobody else to do it,” he said in his autobiography.
5. The first KFC franchise opened in Utah.
Surprisingly, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s fast-food debut happened in Salt Lake City in 1952, where Pete Harman—a restaurant owner and Sanders’s friend—became the first franchisee. Harman introduced the signature chicken bucket and branded the product as “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” At the time, it seemed like a local specialty. Sanders was 65 and living on a $105 monthly Social Security check when he began driving his 1946 Ford around the U.S., signing up franchisees.
6. Sanders sued KFC for $122 million after selling it.
After selling the business in 1964, Sanders became highly critical of the company, especially under Heublein’s ownership starting in 1971. He slammed the chain’s gravy as “slop” and the executives as “a bunch of boozehounds.” Although still a public figure for the brand, Sanders disliked the food so much that he launched “The Colonel’s Lady’s Dinner House” with his wife in 1968 as a potential rival. When Heublein pushed back, Sanders sued for $122 million. The case was settled for $1 million and a cooking demo for Heublein’s team, and Sanders agreed to stop his criticisms. The renamed “Claudia Sanders Dinner House” continues to operate.
7. Sanders had a reputation for foul language.
Despite his gentlemanly Southern image, Sanders was infamous for his profanity—especially when disappointed by the quality of franchise food. A 1970 New Yorker article noted the intensity and flair of his cursing. Sanders himself admitted, “I used to cuss the prettiest you ever heard,” adding that even in front of women, no one seemed to mind.
8. He was blamed for a Japanese baseball curse.
Legend says Sanders cursed the Hanshin Tigers after fans threw a KFC statue of him into an Osaka river during wild celebrations after the team’s 1985 championship win. For decades afterward, the team failed to win another title, and the so-called “Curse of the Colonel” was blamed. The statue was recovered from the riverbed in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2023 that the Tigers won their first Japan Series title in 38 years.