Portrait of a restaurateur: Harland Sanders

Harland Sanders is so closely associated with Kentucky Fried Chicken as “Colonel Sanders” that his early career as a restaurant owner has been largely eclipsed. However, it occupied much of his time and energy before — and to a lesser extent after — he began selling and promoting his fried chicken recipe. [Above: Sanders at a restaurant convention, 1939] He had a rough early life. His father, an Indiana farmer, died when he was 8. His mother took a factory job to support the family, while as the eldest child Harland was left with caring for his sisters, which included cooking their meals. He did not finish grade school. At age 12 his mother married a man that he disliked and he set off on his own, traveling around and working at a number of dead-end jobs. According to a 1960 story in the trade publication American Restaurant, before he opened his restaurant in 1930 in Corbin, KY, Sanders “had worked as: farm hand, house painter, soldier [in Cuba], blacksmith helper for a railroad,…