The World Famous Colonel: How Harland Sanders Got His Start
The World Famous Colonel: How Harland Sanders Got His Start
Harland David Sanders was born on September 9, 1890 on a farm in Henryville, Indiana. He was the eldest of three children to a butcher father, Wilbert Sanders, and a homemaker mother, Margaret Ann Dunleavy. Sanders’ life was turned upside down when he was just five years old. His father died, leaving his mother to look after the three kids. Sanders was left in charge of his siblings while his mother worked extra jobs peeling tomatoes at a canning factory and sewing. This first experience of learning how to cook for his siblings would be an important one for the young Sanders.
When Sanders was ten years old, he got his first job working part-time on a local farm. He soon quit school so he could work full-time and help support his family. At 12 years old, Sanders’ mother remarried to a produce farmer whom Sanders would not enjoy an easy relationship with. While the rest of the family moved to Indianapolis, Sanders stayed where he was, working on a farm for $15 a month, plus room and board.
After three years of working on the farm, Sanders found a job as a streetcar conductor in New Albany. He soon quit that position to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he would spend a year as a soldier stationed in Cuba. When he was discharged, he got married and moved to Jasper, Alabama, in what would be the beginning of a long and varied career.
Sanders started off by selling insurance, but soon opened up his own steamboat ferry company on the Ohio River. A few years later, he began to work as a secretary for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. Here, Sanders met an inventor who had found a way to run natural gas lamps on gas from carbide. Sanders bought the rights to the patent and attempted to start a manufacturing company, but it quickly failed.
Sanders then went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad, during which time he also earned a law degree by correspondence from Southern University. When he lost his job with the railroad, he saw it as his perfect opportunity to begin practicing law. Despite modest success, Sanders’ legal career came to a quick halt when he got into a fight with a client in the courtroom.
By then it was 1930. The depression was beginning to hit people hard and employment was difficult to come by. Never one to have an easy time working for someone else anyway, Sanders finally decided to go into business for himself. At 40 years old, this was going to be the start of something new.
The World Famous Colonel How Harland Sanders Got His Start
Like this article? Share it with your friends
He is known as the Southern gentleman in the white suit, white goatee and black string tie, and he is perhaps one of the most famous colonels in the world. Despite not founding the business until he was 66 years old, Harland Sanders turned his local chicken stand into a multinational fast-food franchise. Today, KFC has more than 14,000 franchise outlets in over 100 countries, and pulls in over $520 million in annual revenue. That success, however, was the result of a long and uphill journey for Sanders.
Harland David Sanders was born on September 9, 1890 on a farm in Henryville, Indiana. He was the eldest of three children to a butcher father, Wilbert Sanders, and a homemaker mother, Margaret Ann Dunleavy. Sanders’ life was turned upside down when he was just five years old. His father died, leaving his mother to look after the three kids. Sanders was left in charge of his siblings while his mother worked extra jobs peeling tomatoes at a canning factory and sewing. This first experience of learning how to cook for his siblings would be an important one for the young Sanders.
When Sanders was ten years old, he got his first job working part-time on a local farm. He soon quit school so he could work full-time and help support his family. At 12 years old, Sanders’ mother remarried to a produce farmer whom Sanders would not enjoy an easy relationship with. While the rest of the family moved to Indianapolis, Sanders stayed where he was, working on a farm for $15 a month, plus room and board.
After three years of working on the farm, Sanders found a job as a streetcar conductor in New Albany. He soon quit that position to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he would spend a year as a soldier stationed in Cuba. When he was discharged, he got married and moved to Jasper, Alabama, in what would be the beginning of a long and varied career.
Sanders started off by selling insurance, but soon opened up his own steamboat ferry company on the Ohio River. A few years later, he began to work as a secretary for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. Here, Sanders met an inventor who had found a way to run natural gas lamps on gas from carbide. Sanders bought the rights to the patent and attempted to start a manufacturing company, but it quickly failed.
Sanders then went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad, during which time he also earned a law degree by correspondence from Southern University. When he lost his job with the railroad, he saw it as his perfect opportunity to begin practicing law. Despite modest success, Sanders’ legal career came to a quick halt when he got into a fight with a client in the courtroom.
By then it was 1930. The depression was beginning to hit people hard and employment was difficult to come by. Never one to have an easy time working for someone else anyway, Sanders finally decided to go into business for himself. At 40 years old, this was going to be the start of something new.
The World Famous Colonel How Harland Sanders Got His Start
Like this article? Share it with your friends
![]() | |
| |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
|
| |
| |||
Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
|||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
|||
John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
|
![]() | ||
|
| ||
![]() |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
![]() |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
![]() |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
![]() |
|
|
![]() | ||
|
Guide To ERP Software
Business Management Software | ||
|
Top 50 SEO Posts - 2008
Top SEO Posts of the Year | ||
![]() | ||
![]() | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|





















