KFC First Became A Hit In This US State (It Wasn't Kentucky)

With a name like Kentucky Fried Chicken (before its 1991 rebrand as KFC), you'd think maybe the state with this famed fast food chain's name in it would be where it first thrived. But like so many things surrounding this company's origins, what might seem straightforward is anything but. "Colonel" Harland Sanders wasn't an actual colonel or even from Kentucky, and had a very checkered career before he met the man who would help transform his golden fried chicken recipe into a gold mine. That man was Pete Harman, KFC's first franchisee in Salt Lake City, Utah, and a key figure in the chain's early success.

Yes, it was Utah, not Kentucky, where KFC as we know it really began. Before Sanders convinced Harman to go into business with him, the company didn't even have the name Kentucky Fried Chicken, its famous tagline, "finger-lickin' good," or its signature bucket. Those were all Harman's ideas. As with everything else in this confusing origin story, the company's first franchise wasn't actually named Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC as a standalone business would come later.

A year after meeting Pete and Arline Harman at a Chicago restaurant convention in 1951, Harland Sanders looked up the couple in Salt Lake City. One taste of Sander's chicken and they were hooked. They went into business together and trademarked the Kentucky Fried Chicken name. It was an immediate hit. In 1952, Harman began selling Sanders' signature pressure-cooked chicken, made with the Colonel's secret "11 herbs and spices" recipe, at his Harman Cafe (sometimes referred to as Harman's Cafe) in Salt Lake City, Utah. In the first year that the cafe offered Sanders' chicken, it sold nearly 140,000 orders.

The chicken sold so well that Harman's business increased 75% in a year, and by 1953, they added a special "Kentucky Room" dining area to the restaurant and opened additional locations. With Harman's encouragement, Sanders began traveling across the U.S. in his car to establish more franchises. By 1960, Sanders had signed up more than 400 KFC franchisees. In 1964, he sold the company to Jack Massey and John Y. Brown, who turned KFC into a true national chain with a unified identity. (Though Harman remained a KFC franchisee.)

While Sanders was happy to play the mascot for Kentucky Fried Chicken, it was Harman who helped bring the concept to life and made it one of the oldest chain restaurants in the U.S.  But the many Utahns who couldn't get enough of Sanders' chicken were ultimately responsible for the chain's success. Today, there's a life-sized bronze statue of Sanders and Harman outside the rebuilt Harman Cafe/KFC (the original building was torn down in 2004), where the people of Utah can still get their fried chicken fix.