SECRETARY FALL RESIGNS DUE TO INVOLVEMENT IN TEAPOT DOME
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On January 2, 1923, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall* resigned as a result of his involvement in the Teapot Dome** scandal.
Secretary Fall, appointed by President Warren G. Harding, was charged with taking "loans" of nearly $400,000 from oil companies in return for allowing them to exploit public lands in Wyoming.
Found guilty of bribery and conspiracy, Fall was sent to prison for a year becoming the first former cabinet officer to serve time for misconduct while in office.
*Albert Bacon Fall (1861-1944) was born in Frankfort, KY & settled in the territory of New Mexico where he practiced law. ABF lost two children to the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.
He served in the NM House of Representatives (1891-1892) & as associate judge on the NM Supreme Court. ABF was a captain in the Spanish-American War.
**Teapot Dome is a scandal involving secret leasing of federal oil reserves in California & Wyoming in the early 1920s. The name came from a rock formation in Wyoming. The scandal revealed extensive corruption in the Harding administration.
