Return to Teapot Dome
That’s it! Teapot Rock, Wyoming.
(Casper, WY) - Sitting on one of the main streets of Casper it suddenly dawned on me I was near the compass point of one of the biggest scandals in American history. One that echoes through time and has a role in how we probe the scandals of the present day.
Perhaps you remember the name, or even some small parts of the story from your high school history class.
A half hour from where I was sitting that morning was the area of Wyoming known as Teapot Dome - the naval oil reserve that gave its name to the first controversy leading to the conviction of a former cabinet secretary and confirmed the power of Congress to issue subpoenas and conduct investigations.
Teapot Dome is named after Teapot Rock and that’s the location I set my navigation app to as I drove toward my appointment with history.
In case your memory is fuzzy, here’s what the Teapot Dome scandal was all about.
Under the administration of Warren Harding, Albert Fall, a former U.S. Senator from New Mexico, was appointed secretary of the Department of Interior. Both Harding and Fall were close to the oil industry and Fall had a few high powered friends in the business.
In 1922, with no competitive bidding, Fall leased drilling rights to Teapot Dome to Harry Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company. He also leased rights, under similar circumstances, to two reserves in California to Edward Doheny of Pan-American Petroleum.
Soon after, suspicions arose in the news media and the halls of Congress. A resolution was passed in support of an investigation that was led by Montana Senator Thomas Walsh. The investigation eventually revealed that Secretary Fall had received a $100,000 interest free loan from Doheny and a large herd of livestock from Sinclair. Sinclair also was accused of transferring Liberty Bonds and cash worth $300,000 to an account held by Fall’s son-in-law.
In 1929, Fall was convicted of accepting a bribe from Doheny. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000.
Sinclair challenged the Senate’s power to look into his private affairs and the case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. He lost. In Sinclair vs. United States the court ruled Congress does have the power to look into cases in which the country’s laws may have been broken. Sinclair was sentenced to six months in prison for contempt of Congress and jury tampering.
The court’s ruling in the Sinclair case is at the root of congressional powers to investigate; including the power to subpoena testimony and other evidence.
Fall ended up serving nine months in prison. Harding died in office and was never directly accused in the scandal. Sinclair did his time and returned to run his business successfully until his death.
Sinclair’s company is still in business today and on a drive from Casper to Teapot Rock you might just stop at a Sinclair gas station to make sure you have enough fuel to get there and back.
In 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy sold Teapot Dome to Stranded Oil Resources Corporation, a subsidiary of the Allegheny Corporation, for $45.2 million. A competitive bidding process was used.
