On this day, April 7, in 1922, the United States secretary of the interior secretly sold the rights to public oil reserves in what became known as the Teapot Dome bribery scandal.
The Teapot Dome is an oil field on public land in Wyoming. The term become synonymous for governmental corruption.
President Warren G. Harding’s interior secretary, Albert B. Fall, sold the oil reserves to his oilmen friends. In exchange, Fall received cash, cattle and no-interest loans. The planning was allegedly hatched in Washington at the Little Green House at 1625 K St. The building has since been razed.
Fall was sentenced to a year in prison for accepting bribes, the first Cabinet officer to be sent to prison.
— Scott McCabe
