Halfway along its southbound journey from the Detroit to Florida, US Route 25 splits into two. On the map I am gazing at, the effect looks rather like a wishbone. Which is appropriate, since I am inside the modest roadside stop that is the birthplace of KFC.
The location: Corbin, Kentucky, a small town amid the gentle, wooded hills of southern Kentucky. And the most celebrated Corbinite is Harland D Sanders.
Colonel Sanders, as he later became, was “the original celebrity chef”, at least according to the emphatically red and white museum occupying the Sanders Cafe. Today it is a shrine to the man, his “secret recipe” for Kentucky Fried Chicken – and his shrewd business sense.
Read more on USA travel:
A century ago, travellers heading south from Michigan’s Motor City passed through dozens of anonymous small towns. Corbin was different: this was where Route 25 divided into two. Motorists heading for Florida’s Atlantic seaboard chose the east fork, those aiming for the Gulf coast of the Sunshine State went west.
The birthplace of KFC originally included a motel
(KFC)
A good place, then, to pause. In 1930, the 40-year-old entrepreneur set up a gas station, called Sanders Servistation. In the days of leaky tyres, Sanders coined a marketing gimmick: “free air”. And he served motorists while wearing a bow tie.
A year later Sander expanded his modest empire across the road. He created Sanders Court, comprising a small restaurant and a motel. The speciality was spiced fried chicken.
For a couple of decades, the plump-cheeked purveyor of poultry thrived on America’s growing wealth, mobility and propensity to travel.
Colonel Sanders made Corbin world-famous
(Simon Calder)
Sanders also build an adjacent motel. Standardised budget accommodation was still in its infancy. So to drive sales, the bespectacled businessman placed a mock-up of a motel room in the dining area, so people could see what was on offer.
The state government awarded him the honorary title of “colonel”. Even though much of his creation was destroyed by fire in 1939, he bounced back in 1940 with “pressure fried chicken” as the house speciality.
But Highway 25 was getting busy. In 1956, by which time Sanders was 66, the government in Washington DC decided to bypass Corbin. The previous year McDonalds had sold their first franchise for a burger restaurant in Des…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…