by R W Owen

Created on: July 08, 2009

In the early years of the twentieth century, large oil reserves were discovered on federal land at Elk Hills, California and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. In 1912, President William Howard Taft set these oil fields aside for the U.S. Navy to use as emergency oil stores. Many politicians, including freshman senator Albert B. Fall of the new state of New Mexico, opposed the reservation of such lucrative lands for government use.

Soon after being appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in 1921, Albert B. Fall, as one of his first actions in office, persuaded Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby to transfer control of the fields to the Department of the Interior, under Fall's control. Fall then leased the Teapot Dome field to Harry F. Sinclair, of Mammoth Oil Company, and the Elk Hills reserve in California to a former prospecting partner, Edward L. Doheny, of Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company. In exchange for these leases, Fall ultimately received over $400,000 (over $5 million in 2008 dollars) from the two companies.

Fall tried to keep the arrangement secret, but the change in his lifestyle brought on by his exorbitant spending soon attracted notice. On April 14, 1922, The Wall Street Journal broke the story, reporting Fall's clandestine leasing of the Teapot Dome oil field to Harry F. Sinclair without the required competitive bidding. Robert M. LaFollette, Republican senator from Wisconsin, and John B. Kendrick, Democratic senator from Wyoming called for an investigation into the matter, which ultimately lasted several years. President Harding defended Fall and asserted that he had approved the planning and execution of the deal. Fall's effort to cover up the scandal suffered a blow; however, when Harding, and his support, died suddenly on August 2, 1923, before the hearings began.

After the hearings began on October 15, 1923, testimony was heard from dozens of witnesses. Fall expertly covered his tracks, making it difficult for the investigation to implicate him in any wrongdoing. Finally, in January 1924, Doheny finally admitted lending Fall $100,000 in exchange for the leases. Soon after, Albert Fall and Edwin Denby, Secretary of the Navy, resigned from office. Following more investigation, the Supreme Court invalidated the leases for both fields in 1927 and reassigned the lands to the U.S. Navy. In 1929, six years after resigning his post, Fall was found guilty of accepting a $100,000 bribe in return for the

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