Conference/Tweets/Presentations/News, page-263

When McDonald's first come to Australia and started spreading to country areas. They called for expressions of interest for a franchise in Morwell Vic. It was the very first one in this area outside of Melbourne.
Nobody applied, so it was re advertised and there was only one person that applied. He was granted a franchise, but instead of being for Morwell only it was for Gippsland.
His franchise covered all future sites east of Dandenong which was on the edge of Melbourne back then. He held a franchise for all future stores east of Dandenong to the NSW border. He quickly opened many stores.

Now if this happened in other country areas at that time there will be many franchise's held by families all over Australia with several dozen stores. Like the bloke I know.