Rise of ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ is franchising case study

Colonel Harland Sanders was in his early 60s in 1952 when he began enlisting fast-food franchisees to sell his famous “Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

 

He was successful, and by 1964, more than 600 KFC franchises were operating in the United States and Canada. Colonel Sanders figured it was time to sell the company…and kick back.

He accepted a $2 million offer from a group of investors, led by John Young Brown Jr., who would become governor of Kentucky, and Jack Carroll Massey, a venture capitalist and entrepreneur.

 

John Young Brown Jr. with Colonel Sanders

Jack Carroll Massey

But as part of the deal, they insisted that Colonel Sanders (at age 74) continue as “brand ambassador” and visit KFC restaurants to “ensure the quality and consistency” of his treasured fried chicken secret recipe.”

Colonel Sanders was still going strong in 1971 when KFC became part of Heublein Inc., known primarily as a producer and distributor of alcoholic beverages.

 

Colonel Sanders accused the new owners of being “boozehounds” and ruining KFC’s gravy. 

He was always fussy about the quality of all the food served in KFC restaurants, and he harshly criticized Heublein for turning his mashed potato gravy into “sludge” that had less flavor than “wallpaper paste.”

 

Goodness gracious. Legal fireworks ensued, beginning in 1973, with Colonel Sanders and Heublein duking it out. Heublein sought to block Colonel Sanders and his wife, Claudia, from operating a competing restaurant in Shelbyville, Ky., known as the “Colonel’s Lady Dinner House.”

Heublein settled out of court in 1975, paying Colonel Sanders and his wife $1 million, continuing his salary as KFC’s goodwill ambassador and allowing the new venture to go forward as the “Claudia Sanders Dinner House.”

 

In exchange, Colonel Sanders (now 85), agreed to give the Heublein executives “a cooking lesson.” A staff writer with The New York Times reported that Colonel Sanders cooked “as good a chicken as I ever ate.”

“I proved to them that it could be done,” said the Colonel. “They were just as interested in quality as I was but didn’t know how to go about it.”

 

Colonel Sanders, who suffered from acute leukemia, died of pneumonia in 1980, at age 90.

One of Colonel Sanders’ disciples who advanced through the ranks in the restaurant industry was Rex David Thomas, founder of Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio.

Dave Thomas was an ordinary teenager working a busboy at the Hobby House restaurant in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1950, when the Korean War began. He enlisted in the Army at age 18.

Officers took note of Thomas’ food service background. He received specialized training to become a mess sergeant and was deployed to West Germany, where he was responsible for the daily meals of 2,000 soldiers.

After his discharge in 1953, Thomas returned to Fort Wayne and the Hobby House where he quickly worked his way up the ladder to become the restaurant’s assistant manager.

In 1956, Hobby House president Phil Clauss entered into a KFC franchising agreement with Colonel Sanders.

In 1962, Clauss asked Thomas, who had risen to become a Hobby House vice president, to return to the trenches and revive four Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in Columbus that were struggling financially.

Thomas made drastic changes right away, including paring down the menu to exclusively feature fried chicken. The stores were short on cash to advertise, so Thomas traded barrels of fried chicken for promotions of “KFC” on local radio and television stations.

Soon, Thomas had expanded the operation of four faltering stores to eight successful ones…and he achieved “rock star status” in the eyes of Colonel Sanders. They became lifelong friends.

Melinda Lou “Wendy” Thomas-Morse, the fourth child of Dave and Lorraine Thomas, is the namesake of the “Wendy’s” brand. She continues as the company spokesperson.

Kentucky Fried Chicken was an early client of the Lippincott & Margulies advertising agency in New York City, formed by J. Gordon Lippincott and Walter P. Margulies. The agency created the original logo for Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952. It was redesigned (shown below) in 1978. 

The KFC/Sanders Cafe & Museum in Corbin, Ky., is open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

North Carolina was the 2nd place to offer original KFC fare

Colonel Harland Sanders once owned a motor inn and restaurant near Asheville in Buncombe County, N.C., where he served guests his famous “Kentucky Fried Chicken”…as well as other tasty country dishes.

Sanders Court and Café opened in 1939 and provided about 80 guest rooms. Postcards listed the amenities: “Complete accommodations with tile baths, hot water, carpeted floors, ‘Perfect Sleeper’ beds, air conditioned, steam heated, radio in every room, open all year, serving excellent food.”

 

The centerpiece was Sanders’ 140-seat restaurant, which became a magnet for tourists and travelers. It was located at the crossroads of U.S. Route 25 (Weaverville Highway) and N.C. Route 251 (Old Marshall Highway) in Woodfin, a small community on the French Broad River north of Asheville.

Sanders’ North Carolina restaurant was modeled after his original Sanders Café, which opened in 1935 in Corbin, Ky.

 

Almost immediately thereafter, Sanders received an endorsement from Kentucky Gov. Ruby Laffoon, who frequently dined at Sanders Café. He issued a ceremonial decree commissioning Harland Sanders as an honorary Kentucky Colonel – the highest honor awarded to a citizen of the Bluegrass State.

Colonel Sanders attracted the attention of food critic Duncan Hines, who wrote about Sanders Café in Corbin in his popular “Adventures in Good Eating” guidebook. An entry in Hines’ 1939 edition read: “A very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls (in Kentucky) and the Great Smoky Mountains (in Tennessee/North Carolina). Continuous 24-hour service. Sizzling steaks, fried chicken, country ham, hot biscuits. Lunch 50¢ to $1; Dinner 60¢ to $1.”

 

Some food historians claim that it was in North Carolina, in 1940, where Sanders (at age 50) began using specially built pressure cookers to quickly fry his crispy and delicious “finger lickin’ good” chicken, seasoned with that glorious, secret recipe blend of 11 herbs and spices.

Colonel Sanders’ two restaurants were doing a brisk business…until World War II heated up. Gasoline rationing in 1942 caused a steep decline in U.S. tourism. As a result, Sanders closed the North Carolina café…and moved on.

(Over the years, others tried running the restaurant and motel that retained the name Sanders Court. A major fire in the mid-1950s reduced what was left of the property into a small group of apartment units, which are still viable.) 

Colonel Sanders was “transformed” when he was “re-commissioned” as a Kentucky Colonel in 1950 by his friend, Gov. Lawrence Wetherby (shown below). 

The “new look” Colonel Sanders emerged with his snappy white suit that complemented his white hair, mustache and goatee, wearing a western-style bow tie and browline glasses. Get the picture?

 

He developed a business plan to sell his seasoning recipe…and his method of preparing and cooking crispy fried chicken…to fast-food franchisees. The first to sign up in 1952 was Pete Harman, who owned and operated The Do Drop Inn in South Salt Lake, Utah.

 

A handshake agreement stipulated that Harman would pay Colonel Sanders a nickel per chicken sold.

Harman is credited with pioneering the famous bucket container and creating the brand “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Eventually, Harman Management Corp. came to operate 238 KFC stores in four states.

 

Alysa Salzberg of chowhound.com said Colonel Sanders’ image continues to “represent” the KFC brand and is seen at more than 27,000 fast-food restaurants in about 150 countries around the globe, making it the world’s fifth largest fast-food chain.

“It’s no wonder Colonel Sanders is one of the world’s best-known brand mascots. In 2006, he was added to Advertising Week magazine’s Madison Avenue Walk of Fame in New York City, which honors the most celebrated brand ambassadors of all time,” Salzberg said.

Colonel Harland Sanders’ career exemplifies ‘perseverance’

For roughly half his life, Harland David Sanders of Henryville, Ind., was a poster child for the “school of hard knocks,” bouncing from place-to-place and from job-to-job.

Born into a poor farming family in 1890, Harland Sanders was 5 years old when his father died. His mother took a job working long hours at a tomato cannery, leaving young Harland to look after and cook for his two younger siblings.

(This “kitchen experience” would eventually become Harland Sanders’ ticket to fame and fortune as the legendary Colonel Sanders, but it was a long haul over a bumpy road.)

 

Harland’s mother remarried twice, and Harland had “a tumultuous relationship” with his second stepfather, causing Harland to leave home at age 13. He found work painting horse carriages before becoming a streetcar conductor.

In 1906, Harland Sanders falsified his date of birth and enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 16. He was deployed to Cuba as a participant in the Second Intervention and assigned as a wagoner, delivering supplies to American troops.

After being honorably discharged in 1907, Harland relocated to Jasper, Ala., where he found work as a blacksmith’s helper in the Southern Railway workshops. He progressed to cleaning out the ash pans of locomotives and was soon promoted to fireman (steam engine stoker).

He was dismissed from the railroad for “insubordination,” which would become a somewhat common occurrence for Harland, who had a reputation for bullheadedness.

 Switching gears, Harland studied law by correspondence and began to perform legal duties in justice-of-the-peace courts in Arkansas. That job lasted until Harland got into a fistfight with one of his clients while court was in session.

 

Later, Harland tried working other jobs, such as selling life insurance, selling automobile tires, running a local chamber of commerce and delivering babies as a male midwife. He went on to establish a profitable ferry boat company, transporting people and cargo across the Ohio River between Jeffersonville, Ind., and Louisville, Ky.

In 1930, the Shell Oil Company offered Harland a job running a service station in Corbin, Ky. He could live in the back of the building rent-free, in return for paying the company a percentage of sales. America was in the grips of the Great Depression.

Harland Sanders was grateful for the opportunity, and to embellish his business, he had the bright idea to prepare and serve simple country dishes that would feed hungry truck drivers. They would gather around the dinner table in the Sanders family living quarters.

His specialty was country ham and steaks. (Pan-fried chicken was not on the original menu because it took too long to prepare.)

Word spread around town, and more people started coming to Sanders’ Shell gas station just for the food. Harland moved his food service operation across the street in 1935, taking over a motel and restaurant in Corbin in order to seat more diners.

So, now, at age 45, Harland Sanders had found finally his niche in the food service industry. (It was the midway point in his life. Harland Sanders died in 1980 at age 90.)

One of the regular customers who frequented Sanders Café in Corbin was Kentucky Gov. Ruby Laffoon (shown below). He commissioned Harland Sanders as a “Kentucky Colonel” in 1935.

 

This endorsement set the wheels in motion for “Colonel Harland Sanders” to establish a fast-food empire that spanned the globe – Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC.

A major steppingstone in that whole endeavor was Sanders’ second restaurant, which he opened in 1939 and purposefully located in Buncombe County, N.C., a few miles north of Asheville, to attract the tourist trade.

‘Seven Sisters’ college consortium will turn 100 in 2026

While America is gearing up for a star-spangled banner year in 2026 to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday – the Semiquincentennial – let’s not overlook the 100-year anniversary observance of the creation of the “Seven Sisters” consortium of women’s liberal arts colleges.

 

Credit Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken (shown below), president of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., for drawing attention to “the difficulties that women’s schools were having in raising endowment money sufficient for the desired caliber of education for young women in the early 20th century.”

 

In 1915, Dr. MacCracken hosted a gathering of the leadership from three other women’s colleges, all located in Massachusetts – Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Smith in Northampton and Wellesley in Wellesley. They agreed to form an alliance to advocate that “women’s education be put on an equal footing with opportunities available to men.”

It’s important to remember that women did not possess the right to vote in the United States at this time. (The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Women’s Right to Vote” was ratified on Aug.18, 1920.)

By 1926, three other women’s educational institutions agreed to join the consortium: Barnard in New York City; Bryn Mawr (Pa.); and Radcliffe in Cambridge, Mass. Hence, an association was formalized.

Someone came up with the bright idea of naming the seven-college group as “The Seven Sisters,” in reference to Greek mythology.

 

Collectively, the seven sisters are known as the Pleiades, daughters of Pleione and Atlas. Orion, the mighty hunter, romantically pursued the young women, but Zeus, king of all the Olympian gods, helped them escape by changing them into doves. They flew into the sky and became a cluster of stars within the constellation Taurus, the bull. To the southeast is Orion, still chasing them.

The women’s colleges that became The Seven Sisters confederation, were viewed as “female counterparts to the male Ivy-league colleges,” but Dr. MacCracken revealed the economic disparities in 1926.

The top men’s schools had a combined endowment of $319 million, while The Seven Sisters’ endowments totaled only $36 million. A coordinated fundraising plan was launched to remedy the situation.

Six of the original schools continue to meet for an annual conference to exchange information and ideas.

Radcliffe no longer exists as an independent entity. It was founded as “the Harvard Annex” in 1879. When the women’s annex was chartered as a full college in 1894, it was given the name of Harvard’s first female benefactor, Lady Anne Radcliffe Moulson. Radcliffe was fully absorbed within Harvard in 1999. (The photo below is from the Radcliffe archives.)

 

Vassar became coeducational in 1969, but continues to work together with Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley as the six colleges take turns hosting the annual conference. (Vassar photos are shown below,)

 

The eldest “Sister” is Mount Holyoke, founded in 1837 by schoolteacher Mary Mason Lyon, who grew up on a farm near Buckland, Mass.

The college, located in the Connecticut River Valley, offers a view of Mount Holyoke, the highest peak in the Holyoke Range, with an elevation of 935 feet. (The territory was first surveyed by colonist Elizur Holyoke, who had settled in Springfield, Mass.)

Lyon served as Mount Holyoke’s president for 12 years. Her vision “fused intellectual challenge and moral purpose.” An early pupil in 1847 was Emily Dickinson.

 (Mount Holyoke photos are shown below.)

The youngest “Sister” is Barnard, formed in 1889 “as a response to Columbia College’s refusal to admit women. Barnard is named after Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard, a deaf American educator and mathematician who served as Columbia’s president for 25 years.

 

“He advocated for coeducational settings and first proposed in 1879 that Columbia admit women. Columbia’s Board of Trustees repeatedly rejected Barnard’s suggestion, however.”

(Wellesley College photos are shown below.)

(May Day is celebrated annually at Bryn Mawr College as shown below).

(And, finally, a photo from Smith College is shown below.)