Finger Lickin' Anniversary: KFC Turns 50

Aug. 12 -- Pete Harman was building a successful burger business in Utah when a white-haired, goateed acquaintance from Kentucky showed up unexpectedly and offered to cook a friedchicken dinner.

Col. Harland Sanders had a business proposition. He was certain that one helping of his specialty chicken, coated with a blend of 11 herbs and spices, would persuade Harman to add chickento his menu.

Harman was hooked after a few bites. Soon, his restaurant was promoting the dish, called Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The chicken became an instant hit in that August of 1952 as customers lined up outside the Salt Lake City eatery to take home dinners by the bucketful. For $3.50, they got 14 pieces of chicken,mashed potatoes, rolls and gravy.

"We couldn't cook the chicken fast enough," Harman said.

Modest Beginnings to Millions Served

From humble beginnings, Kentucky Fried Chicken became a fast-food staple and its originator one of the world's most recognizable faces.

Fifty years later, the chain built on Sanders' salesmanship and homestyle cooking boasts nearly 12,000 restaurants worldwide generating sales of nearly $10 billion a year.

"It's really one of the great American entrepreneurial stories," said John Y. Brown Jr., who took the company's reins from the colonel.

For Sanders, success was a long time coming. He drifted from job to job, including stints as a railroad fireman, insurance salesman, steamboat ferry operator, tire salesman and service station operator. However, he never was a military officer. The title"colonel" was an honorific bestowed on Sanders by a Kentucky governor.

Sanders perfected his chicken and the cooking technique in the late 1930s while serving hungry customers who stopped at his service station — now a historic landmark in Corbin, Ky.

He decided to take his chicken from a handful of local restaurants to a national stage at the age of 62, a time when most people are thinking of retiring.

Sanders crisscrossed the country by car, his cookware and herbs and spices in the back, to whip up batches of chicken for restaurateurs and their employees. The demonstrations sealed many handshake deals in which restaurant operators agreed to pay Sanders a nickel for each chicken sold.