Leon Weston "Pete" Harman (January 16, 1919 – November 19, 2014) was an American businessman best known for having struck a deal with Colonel Harland Sanders to open the first KFC franchise. Located in Salt Lake County, Utah, Harman's location opened for business in August 1952.
Early life
Harman was born in 1919 in Granger, now a part of West Valley City, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah to David Reese Harman (1874–1924) and Grace May Hemenway (1879–1919). Harman was the youngest of 14 children in a Latter-day Saint family. Harman's mother died two days after he was born, and his father later married Caroline Hemenway Harman, the widow of Pete's uncle. Harman was a major donor to the construction of the Caroline Hemenway Harman Continuing Education Building at Brigham Young University, named after his step-mother.[2]
Harman and his wife, Arline, opened their first restaurant, The Do Drop Inn, with two employees in 1941. They had met in the 1930s while both employees at the same restaurant in San Francisco, California, and married in 1938.