Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum - Corbin, KY - Historic Restaurant

As most everyone knows, no one can make chicken quite like the Colonel. Visitors can see where it all started by going to the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, in Corbin, KY. This Museum has been rebuilt and looks just the way it did when Colonel Sanders ran it.

Harland Sanders moved to Corbin, KY in 1930 and set up a small shop in the back of a service station to serve lunch. He experimented with various chicken recipes until he found the one that is still being used today - with 11 herbs and spices.

Word quickly got around that his fried chicken was excellent and he soon had to expand his restaurant - making room for all that would come. His shop originally had just one table. In 1937, he had built a restaurant large enough to serve 142 people, and a hotel.

Fire destroyed it all in 1939, but it was rebuilt to look exactly like it had before. Today, it is a historical Museum where visitors can still enjoy the famous Colonel's Kentucky Fried Chicken - and do it in the original dining room, too.

Some time in the 1950's the Colonel began selling his famous business and recipe to various franchisees across the United States and Canada. Some time later he began selling his chicken as fast food.

If you visit the city of Corbin, KY, in September, there is an annual World Chicken Festival. Every year the city gets together for a lot of fun. Musical groups come - both Gospel and country music, and they also bring out the world's biggest skillet - that, of course, is for the fried chicken.

There are also some other special happenings at the World Chicken Festival. This includes rides on a large Ferris wheel and 24 other ones for visitors of all ages. A number of contests are also held, such as the Harlan Sanders look-alike contest, the Hot Wings Eating Contest, a mother-daughter and father-son look-alike contest, and many more.

Several kids' programs are also on the list of activities, too. This includes puppet programs, magic shows, karaoke, and a Kid's Day Circus.

Close to the town of Corbin, KY, and the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, visitors will also find a number of other places worth seeing. This would certainly include the Chained Rock, which is in the Pine Mountain State Resort Park. Visitors can also go to the Library of Mountain Millstones which is the largest collection of millstones in the US, and visitors can also see a little known and out of the way monument of Abraham Lincoln that was carved by an unknown peddler as he passed through the area.

Two National Parks that are not far away are the Cumberland Falls State Park and the Daniel Boone National Forest. At the Cumberland Falls State Park, visitors can be treated to a moonbow - when there is a full moon. It is the only place in the world where a moonbow occurs regularly. In the Daniel Boone National Forest visitors enjoy a lot of water sports at the Laurel River Lake. There they can go boating, swimming, scuba diving, waterskiing and fishing.