Yes, Colonel Sanders was a real guy.
Those of us of a certain age remember Harland Sanders as the living, breathing fried chicken king. Younger people, not so much.
Photos Courtesy of Joe Tennis.
Long before a parade of actors donned a white suit, plus white hair and a snowy beard, the real-life Colonel Harland Sanders strolled the streets of Corbin, Kentucky.
“The younger generation, at one time, they didn’t think the Colonel was a real person,” says Bill Hale, an area manager for Kentucky Fried Chicken, including the original KFC called Sanders Café in Corbin, Kentucky.
The “Colonel” title, by the way, was an honorary one—as in “Kentucky Colonel”—rather than a military rank.
“Colonel Sanders was a real man,” Hale says. “It’s shocking to most people.”
Sanders was a true entrepreneur, too, and opportunity taker. He knew the families shuttling down US-25W during the mid 20th Century wanted more than just the gasoline at his pumps. So he cooked food, and he operated a motel called Sanders Court.
“He was the first one to have a swimming pool in his motel,” remembers Maxine Von Gruenigen, 89. “I don’t know why that always fascinated me, but it does.”
The Colonel also knew marketing. Even on a personal scale. He had a model motel room set up at his gas station and restaurant in Corbin. And, here, visitors could see a model of where they could spend the night.
“He walked Main Street every day of his life in Corbin,” Von Gruenigen says. “He would come downtown from his restaurant to the Chamber of Commerce, and he would walk all the way down Main Street and back and everybody would greet him every morning. Everybody loved him.”
While in Corbin, Sanders also mixed 11 herbs and spices in what became the world-famous original recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
“Colonel Sanders started his recipe here,” says Hale. “He started frying chicken at Sanders Café back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and he sold out in the ‘60s.”
He also loved cooking more than chicken and biscuits with mashed potatoes.
During the 1960s, Sanders would visit the First Christian Church of Corbin, Kentucky. “And he would bring oyster stew to the church’s pot luck suppers,” says Maxine’s husband, 92-year-old Eldred Von Gruenigen of Corbin.
Born in 1890, Sanders spent time as an insurance salesman. In later years, Sanders went on the road, seeking to sell franchise rights to his restaurants during the 1960s. Yet, in that era and into the 1970s, when he appeared on TV commercials, Sanders was also known to drop into Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. And, if he didn’t find food to his liking, well, he would rather bluntly let the cooks know.
“He had a restaurant in North Corbin, and, every morning, he’d ask to see if everything was all right,” says Eldred Von Gruenigen. “If he found something was wrong—anything—with breakfast, or if it wasn’t cooked right, he would throw a fit. He was known for that.”
Today, the original Sanders Café restaurant at Corbin is an eat-in museum, where handsome walls—made of wormy chestnut—display memorabilia. Original equipment also dates to Sanders’ lifetime, including the office where Sanders worked and the kitchen where he cooked.
Harland David Sanders died on Dec. 16, 1980.
In Corbin, he’s remembered not only at the Sanders Café but also at a small park on Monroe Street, just off the Main Street where he once strolled. That park includes a life-size statue of Colonel Sanders plus an herb garden that hints at the contents of KFC’s secret recipe.
“He was a rascal,” says Maxine Von Gruenigen. “But, everybody loved him.”
The story above appears in our July/August 2020 issue.
