Teapot Dome Scandal (jan 1, 1921 – jan 1, 1923)

Description:

This is a scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, Albert Bacon Fall. After Pres. Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome (Wyoming) reserves. He granted similar rights to Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum Company for the Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills reserves in California.

Fall and members of his family had received from an unknown source more than $200,000 in Liberty bonds under circumstances indicating that the bonds came from a company organized by Sinclair and others receiving benefits from the lease. Also, it appeared that prior to the execution of the Pan American contracts and leases, Doheny, at Fall’s request, sent $100,000 in currency to Fall as a “loan” that had not been repaid.

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