As the car turned into the Huntsville, Ala., railroad station, an ancient, but majestic, steam engine came into view. "Why that's the kind of engine I used to fire," said one of the car's passengers.
"Oh boy, look at that," he smiled. "What a good load of coal! They haven't got a lot of slag in there. You know, coming back to the railroad is the thrill of a lifetime."
And what a lifetime it has been - from firing Southern steam engines at the age of 16 to producing "finger lickin' good" Kentucky Fried Chicken at 66 - and now at 81 he is everyone's favorite Colonel. Yet Harland Sanders still keenly remembers his days on the Southern.
Colonel Sanders got his chance to relive his early railroad experiences during a recent steam excursion from Huntsville to Sheffield. The trip was sponsored by the North Alabama chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and Southern Railway. Grabbing a shovel, the Colonel helped to fire Steam Engine No.77 from Huntsville to Decatur and then joined passengers for the rest of the trip.
"I started firing for Southern out of Jasper, Ala., in 1906," the Colonel reminisced. "I was filling sand boxes in Jasper when a fireman failed to show up one morning. I showed the engineer that I could fire so he took me on the trip. I fired for Southern for the next five years.
" About the most exciting thing that happened to me was a runaway - train ride down Darlington Mountain near Russellville, Ala. It was a pretty steep grade and I was sitting with my head out the window enjoying the breeze when the engineer said, 'Harland, get ready to hang on because we don't have any brakes.'
"Well, that cussed thing - with every turn of the wheel it was going faster and faster. When we got to the town of Darlington, right at the foot of the mountain, the people were leaving town - running out of the depot - because they heard us coming. I guess we rolled way out into the flat, almost to Russellville, before we stopped."
A hit with the children, Colonel Sanders (center) passes out autographed pictures from the cab of Engine 77. With the Colonel are James A. Bistline (left), Southern's assistant vice president and general counsel; and Fred Black, a Southern engineer from Sheffield, Ala., who worked as fireman on the steam trip. |
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Colonel Sanders, who was born in Henryville, Ind., in 1890, dropped out of school after the sixth grade. Just before turning 16 he joined the Army. "It was during the American intervention in Cuba and I volunteered for one year. When we started for Cuba from Newport News, Va., I weighed 168 pounds. When I got off at Havana I weighed only 127. I had sea sickness like the devil and lost 41 pounds in seven days. Still don't like to travel by water."
It was after his Cuba tour that he joined Southern. After leaving Southern he worked for several other railroads, an insurance company, a tire company and ran several gas stations. Then came his big love - the restaurant business.
In 1930 he opened his first restaurant in Corbin, Ky. "I always considered chicken the North American Hospitality Dish and wanted to have the best chicken at my restaurant. I developed this special blend of herbs and spices that I used in my breading and in 1939 came out with the idea of pressure frying."
Glenn E. Taylor, Southern's resident vice president in Birmingham, chats with Mrs. Claudia Sanders during the steam trip. |
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In the 1940's he was made a Kentucky Colonel by Gov. Ruby Laffoon and by the early 1950's everyone knew him as Colonel Sanders. Things were going well for the former fireman.
Then in 1956 the bottom fell out. The government announced that a new interstate highway would run seven miles west of Colonel Sanders' restaurant. "That left us high and dry," explained the Colonel. "Mrs. Sanders and I talked it over and even though I was 66 years old, I still needed to make a living. That's when I decided to go into the franchise business.
"One of our biggest problems getting started was money. After we sold the restaurant at auction, I was getting $105 a month from social security. That paid for my gas and the travel needed to get the franchises started. Lots of nights I would sleep in the back of my car so I would have enough money to buy cookers the next day if someone took a franchise."
"He helped a lot of people go into the restaurant business," said his pert wife, Claudia. "Sometimes their pies or meats or vegetables wouldn't be just right so he began to show them how to do all of it. He wanted the restaurants that served his chicken to have good food."
The rest of the story is history. His fried chicken caught on and eight years ago Colonel Sanders sold his business empire. Now he travels around the country doing radio, television and personal appearances for Kentucky Fried Chicken. "Today my chicken is allover the world," he said. "We have about 4,000 outlets."
Although Mrs. Sanders knows the famous secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken, she does little cooking at home. "I can't tell you what the recipe is," she said. "That is the 64 - dolIar question in the chicken business."
Now when the Colonel gets hungry, he eats at the restaurant named for his wife, "Claudia Sanders, the Colonel's Lady," near his Shelbyvil1e, Ky., home.
But, for one day, the chicken business took second place. The Colonel had a coal shovel in his hands and he was back at his old job. .
Colonel Harland Sanders (left) presented W. Graham Claytor, Jr. (center), Southern's president, a copy of Kentucky, A Pictorial History, when the Colonel was in Washington making plans for the steam trip. Standing next to Mr. Claytor is Colonel Frank Rankin, recently retired manager of the Indiana Grain Gold Proof Elevator of Louisville, Ky., a friend of Colonel Sanders and one of Southern's customers. |
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