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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- The world's first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was demolished Tuesday, leaving the familiar sign bearing Colonel Sanders' smiling face upside down atop a heap of rubble.

By early August, however, KFC will be reborn on the same spot as a restaurant and museum that will tell how buckets of crispy fried chicken came to be sold at nearly 12,000 restaurants around the globe, generating annual sales of around $10 billion.

"We're definitely proud of our heritage in Utah," said James Jackson, chief financial officer for California-based Harman's KFC Corp., based in Los Altos, California.

It's an oft-told story how Colonel Harland Sanders, an acquaintance just passing through Salt Lake City, persuaded Leon "Pete" Harman to let him serve a chicken dinner at Harman's Utah Fried Chicken restaurant.

Harman then invented the now-iconic paper bucket and in August 1952 he filled them with 14 pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls and gravy and charged $3.50.

Bits of history have accumulated over the years, Jackson said. The new 4,000-square-foot KFC will display a narrative of the story on the walls with photos of Harman and Sanders together, vintage pictures of the restaurant, early menus and the familiar full-size fiberglass statue of Sanders that can be posed sitting in a chair or on a bench.

"It's memorabilia that helps people remember KFC's roots in Utah," Jackson said.

Even some of the first franchise's original pressure cookers will be on display.

"That was one of Colonel Sanders' secrets," Jackson said. "He was one of the first people to actually cook chicken in a pressure cooker."

One thing that won't be at the museum is the recipe for the colonel's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices. That remains locked in a vault at KFC headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky.

Sanders perfected his technique in the late 1930s and sold his food to patrons of his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders died in 1980 at the age of 90.

Harman, now 85 and living in Los Altos, is expected at the grand opening of the new Salt Lake City restaurant, Jackson said.

Because of the Salt Lake establishment's special status in fried-chicken history, it remains a franchise of Harman's KFC. All the others are clients of Yum! Brands Inc., whose portfolio also includes Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

Darth_Zod wrote:"kentucky fried chicken" likely referred to the way they made their chicken rather than its place of origin. Much like Chicken fried steak refers to the way the meat is cooked as opposed to having anything to do with chicken.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:And before someone starts it up, the chickens that KFC uses are perfectly normal, healthy, and non-genetically engineered...

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Fuck, me too...

Peregrin Toker wrote:(waits for "KFC is owned by the Church Of Latter-Day Saints" urban legend to jump around)

Zaia wrote:

Peregrin Toker wrote:(waits for "KFC is owned by the Church Of Latter-Day Saints" urban legend to jump around)

Peregrin Toker wrote:In case you don't know, the Church Of Latter-Day Saints are better known as Mormons.

There's a lot of strange rumours about Mormons, so it's not as if nobody woudl accuse them of owning KFC.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Which they don't. Nor do they own Coca-Cola.

Bob the Gunslinger wrote: But they sold out their precious doctrine on no drinking caffeine so that mormons can now have coke.

One wonders if the Church elders invested in Coca Cola just before announcing this reinterpretation of scripture.