New question: Harland Sanders

Many years ago a television documentary on the life of Colonel Harland Sanders was partially filmed aboard the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE, portraying his time on the river. As to details of what boats he worked upon or whether or not he was a pilot, I don't know, as that is rather "hazy history". It has been reported that he once operated a ferry between Louisville and Jeffersonville -- and that he also worked as a streetcar conductor here in New Albany. His birthplace was Henryville, Indiana, just a few miles up I-65 from Jeffersonville.

When he passed away at age 90 in 1980, he lay in state at the Kentucky State Capitol before his funeral service was held in the Alumni Chapel of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. His request was that the Christmas hymn Joy to the World be sung by the congregation (more than 1,000 were in attendance) and that the pipe organ be played with ALL the stops pulled out. The organ in the chapel is an Aeolian-Skinner instrument of 113 ranks of pipes!

Colonel Sanders is buried in Louisville's beautiful and historic Cave Hill Cemetery. His grave is just opposite that of the one and only Capt. C.W. Stoll.

Well that would have been a funeral to be at! Interesting, too, that his grave is opposite C.W.'s. Thanks, Keith.

Harland Sanders showed up one day on the Belle of Louisville. They made an autobiographic-style commercial. He was there nearly all day. He confided to Harris Underwood and me that, "I was never on a boat as big as this in my life." He did operate a ferry somewhere, though.
He was an investor in the Louisville & Jeffersonville Ferry Company from about 1920 until it quit and was corporate secretary in that firm. He, the Coots Family, David B. G. Rose and others promoted the Municipal Bridge (now the Clark Memorial Bridge) in order to improve and integrate Louisville with Jeffersonville, Clarksville and New Albany. The day the bridge opened, in October, 1929, they cut back the ferry operation drastically to one boat, the Froman M. Coots, and operated until December 31, 1929, when the charter expired. On December 31 no fares were charged.
I remember riding one of the ferryboats, either Froman M. Coots or the Henry Watterson. Just before we passed under the Big Four Bridge I moved way out to the side. I didn't want to be hit by the jackstaff when it hit the bridge. It didn't, but it sure looked like it would to my five-year-old eyes.

Capt. Doc Hawley phoned this afternoon, taking a respite from Mardi Gras festivities, and we had a lengthy chat about all kinds of things river, including Colonel Sanders. He said it stuck in his mind that Col. Sanders was connected with the Hines family of Paducah and well known on the river. Doc and I laughed about the time Colonel Sanders came aboard the BELLE for a charter cruise and was so chagrined to see a bar set up (he was very much against the demon rum!) that he took his cane and, with a resounding crash, cleared the bar counter of all bottles and glasses!

I know this is trivia and has nothing to do with steamboats. While Harland Sanders was on the Belle someone mentioned the white linen suits. He told us that to save cleaning them he wore a new one every day. If it got soiled spares were available. He said the company bought them in lots of one hundred!

Incidentally, I know the eleven yarbs and spyces used in KFC's cooking. It is table salt.

*RE: Col Sanders etc.*
Morning, Steamboating colleagues:
What a surprise opening/reading the above RE: Col Sanders the chicken king. First I'd heard about his connections--no matter how murky--to the river and boats as I'm often off in a fog of my own. I do know that my late maternal grandfather knew Sanders well going back to the beginning of his first chicken enterprise. My grandfather, being in the food supply business, talked with Sanders socially a number of times; then in a more business-like way. That indeed was a L-O-N-G time ago. Isn't it true Sanders also tied his first restaurant with an early motel/hotel business when the new higways were being expanded in Kentucky and Indiana? Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Colonel Sanders operated a service station at Corbin, Kentucky and it was here that he, at age 40, began cooking chicken and other dishes for people who stopped there. Long story short, Col. Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1964 for $2 million to a partnership of businessmen headed by John Y. Brown, Jr.

Thanks, Keith & Alan, for the info. on Sanders' boating career. As Dale says, I never suspected!

And the very latest is that KFC is very popular in China, but the dinners come with Chinese sides. Fried chicken or rice? What would you pick?

No doubt what I'd pick: Chicken with General Tso's chicken on the side. As far as I know this is the only good thing that ever came from the military.

Having been in China last year, I can attest to the fact there there is a KFC on practically every corner and they are packed. The famous recipe is not the same in China...the chicken is quite spicey, or at least for my taste.
Louisville is the headquarter for YUM brands which owns KFC and the news from them is they are going drop the F, they don't want to be indentified with fried.

*RE: Col Sanders/Corbin, KY*
Steamboating colleagues:
EUREKA! Keith nailed it confirming my dim memories that Col. Sanders began in Corbin, Ky. I phoned my 94 year old mother but she couldn't recall just what town in Kentucky it was. Wasn't it near the former 'Renfro Valley' operation down there? Lexie also on the mark as I've seen KFC operations in Asia while on trips. I saw one or more in Singapore noting the logo is nearly the same. Chicken offerings with an Asian slant also offering more menu selections. Wonders never cease. Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Or just the General Tso chicken and sides. I must confess to visiting Chinese restaurants significantly more than KFC, or KC...which makes one wonder. Which country (US or China) has the most restaurants with food from the other country? I would say there are more Chinese restaurants in the USA, but I haven't been to China.

*RE: Restaurants World-Wide*
Hi, Lexie & Steamboating colleagues:
Good question above and I dug in my portfolios. Asian/Chinese emporiums are on every continent, island and then some. 'Subway' now has world-wide 33,749 shops. 'Starbuck Coffee' some 16,858 in 50 countries. 'Starbuck' in Asia more along the line of larger, full scale restaurants. 'McDonalds' are also world wide. I've seen all in Asia and Singapore along with Djakarka, Indonesia. A real shock strolling down the streets in Moscow, Russia seeing lines outside of 'McDonalds.' I held stock in 'Chucky Cheese' and 'Dave and Buster's' but sold those off a few years ago. A friend of mine in Cincinnati disersified out of the stock market futures angle and served as a consultant to 'Chucky Cheese' being awarded in time to the tune of $1,000,000. For some people 'birds do sing.' For me they...well...you get the idea. It's only money. Well, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Being a batchelor and not entertaining alot I drink from the cups they serve me beer in at the ballpark, nice tall plastic tumblers with Lynchburg Hillcats on one side and Harland Sanders and KFC on the other. The Ballpark has a deal with KFC. as I was reading this thread I looked over at my tall glass of milk and the Col. was smiling at me.

I don't think they are on every continent - I highly doubt that there is one on Antarctica. There might be a Subway there but I don't think there is an Asian restaurant there.

Fourth Cousin?

My Master's License was only four months old when Captain Wagner called me to his room on the DELTA QUEEN, after the 1971 steamboat race that we had missed because of high water on the Mississippi, and told me that I was to assume command, for the first time, of the boat, as his son, Ernie Lee, was ailing and Cap had to get off and go home. The surprise of it all was still fresh when Betty Blake found me and blurted out excitedly:

"Get up to the Texas Lounge, fast! Colonel Harlan Sanders is coming aboard to meet you."

Moments after arriving in the third deck bar, in came the Colonel, the most recognizable man in the world at that time, and after shaking hands, the conversation went like this:

Betty: "Colonel Sanders .... meet Captain Sanders."
Colonel Sanders: "Where ya' from?"
Self: "Sanders, Kentucky." (Where my Sanders family settled in 1788.)
Colonel Sanders: "Well, we're probably fourth cousins."

That said, the Colonel turned on his heel and exited the Texas Lounge under the watchful eye of his driver/bodyguard, and I never saw him again except on a television ad or smiling from a tub of that "finger-lickin' good" Kentucky-fried bird.

My paternal gratitude goes to the good Colonel for making our name the most closely-connected family name associated, world-wide, with the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And, no, I was not remembered in the reading of his Will, although he was the one who suggested our kinship.

CORRECTION. In 1920 a group of promotors within the Jeffersonville Chamber of Commerce, all advocates of a new highway bridge, formed the Falls Cities Ferry & Transportation Co. to keep the ferries running until the bridge could be built. David B. G. Rose, Froman M. Coots, John Geiger, William T. Ingram and Charles Antz were officers. Harland Sanders, secretary of the Chamber, was an investor. The rest of my earlier submittal is correct.