If there was ever a poster child for late-in-life success, it’s Colonel Harland Sanders — the white-suited, goateed face behind Kentucky Fried Chicken. Today he’s an icon, but his road to that bucket of fame was anything but smooth.
Sanders didn’t start cooking chicken in his golden years; he’d been hustling since childhood. Born in 1890, he bounced between jobs for decades — farmhand, streetcar conductor, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, even a ferryboat operator. He tried nearly everything, and nearly everything fell apart on him. But in his 40s, he finally found something that stuck: running a small service station in Corbin, Kentucky, where he cooked meals for travelers. His fried chicken quickly became the local favorite.
By his 50s, he’d built that little station into a full restaurant, complete with a pressure-cooked chicken recipe that would one day make him famous. But at 65 — an age when most people are thinking about stepping back — a new highway reroute destroyed his business. Customers disappeared. Sanders was left with almost nothing but a Social Security check and a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.
Most people would have called it quits. Sanders got in his car.
At 65 years old, he began driving from restaurant to restaurant, sleeping in the backseat, pitching his chicken recipe to owners around the country. He was turned down hundreds of times. But he kept going. Eventually, one restaurant said yes. Then another. And another. By his 70s, Kentucky Fried Chicken had become a national franchise, and Sanders — the man who’d failed forward for decades — finally became a global success.
Colonel Sanders didn’t just prove that age is “only a number.” He proved that persistence, reinvention, and a little fried chicken can change your life at any stage.
For More Information on Colonel Sanders see the following sources:
Colonel Sanders and the American Dream — Josh Ozersky (University of Texas Press, 2012)
The Autobiography of the Original Celebrity Chef — Harland Sanders (edited edition, 2017; originally 1974/1975)
The Big Book of Kentucky Ghost Stories — Keven McQueen (University Press of Kentucky, 2001)
Colonel Harland Sanders: KFC Founder — Gail Stewart (Lucent Books, 2002)