WI: Colonel Sanders Dies in 1930 Shootout

Delta Force

Banned
What if Colonel Sanders was killed in the 1930 shootout at the Shell gas station where he had just opened his first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant? From Wikipedia:

In 1930, the Shell Oil Company offered Sanders a service station in North Corbin, Kentucky rent free, in return for paying them a percentage of sales.[5] Sanders began to serve chicken dishes and other meals such as country ham and steaks.[16] Initially he served the customers in his adjacent living quarters before opening a restaurant. It was during this period that Sanders was involved in a shootout with a Matt Stewart, a local competitor, over the repainting of a sign directing traffic to his station. Stewart killed a Shell official who was with Sanders and was convicted of murder, eliminating Sanders' competition.[17]
Could a different person or firm have gone on to fill the niche that would be left by the death of Colonel Sanders and the lack of Kentucky Fried Chicken??
 

ben0628

Banned
I don't know but I do know this. A world without Kentucky fried chicken is not a world worth living in.
 
Maybe that Matt Stewart would, assuming he can get off the murder charge on a technicality (or only serve a limited amount of time, like less than 10 years) and then parley the notoriety into a restaurant chain.

Flash-forward to 2015, and whatever Matt Stewart/his marketers decides to call his chain are decorated with the image of a rough, criminal looking "bad-boy", as iconic TTL as Colonel Sanders is in ours. At one point Stewart's iconic image displayed a gun, but this was criticised for its link to gun violence so the restaurant was forced to revamp his look in the 90s.
 
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