https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harland_Sanders
“In 1930, the Shell Oil Company offered Sanders a service station in Corbin, Kentucky rent free, whereby he paid them a percentage of sales.[4] Sanders began to cook chicken dishes and other meals such as country ham and steaks for customers.[15] Since he did not have a restaurant, he served customers in his adjacent living quarters. He was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 by Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon. His local popularity grew, and in 1939 food critic Duncan Hines visited Sanders’s restaurant and included it in Adventures in Good Eating, his guide to restaurants throughout the US. “
Yes, he really was a Colonel.
Interesting life and beginning of KFC.
The Colonel also donated the money to start the hospital in his hometown of Shelbyville, Ky. I have eaten at Claudia Sanders also and it is very good.
Though he did serve in the Army, Sanders was not a military Colonel. Others who have been commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel include Bill Clinton, Ashley Judd, Johnny Depp, and Whoopi Goldberg.