Colonel Harland Sanders & the Shelbyville Connection

Colonel Harland Sanders is linked forever to Shelbyville, Kentucky. After the interstate plan crushed traffic to his Corbin cafe in the mid 1950s, he shifted his base. By 1956 he had moved his company headquarters to Shelbyville to better reach franchisees with spices, pressure cookers, and cartons. In 1959 he and his wife Claudia settled into Blackwood Hall on U S 60, using it as home and office while he worked the road to promote Kentucky Fried Chicken. From Shelbyville he became the face of the brand. News profiles and biographies describe an older Sanders who crisscrossed the country to open stores, film ads, and lecture franchise cooks. That public push grew the chain far beyond Kentucky. The town also became part of the story of Claudia herself. In 1968 the couple opened a separate restaurant there called The Colonel's Lady, later known as the Claudia Sanders Dinner House. It served family meals and southern sides. It was not a KFC, but it kept the Sanders name active in Shelby County. Local talk is mixed about the man. Many remember a generous figure who posed for photos and cut ribbons. Others recall a sharp tongue and a quick temper. That part is not rumor. In 1975 he blasted the company's gravy in a Louisville paper as wallpaper paste and criticized a newer chicken coating. He had already sold the corporation in 1964, but he never stopped speaking his mind about quality. Shelbyville also gets pulled into the long running fascination with the secret recipe. In 2016 a Chicago newspaper printed a handwritten list of 11 herbs and spices from a family scrapbook shown by a nephew. KFC did not confirm that it was the real thing. The dinner house and Blackwood Hall keep the memory alive either way. When Sanders died in 1980, he was buried in Louisville at Cave Hill Cemetery, a short drive from the Shelby County places where he built his final chapter.