Teapot Dome scandal

The origin of the Teapot Dome scandal data back when presidents Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft and Woodrow Wilson, create a naval petroleum reserves in Wyoming and California. The three naval oil fields was the Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills in California and Teapot Dome in Wyoming, were tracts of public land that were reserved by previous presidents to be emergency underground supplies that was to be used by the navy only when the oil supplies was diminished. Many politicians and private oil company interests was to opposed the restrictions placed on the oil fields, they claimed that the reserves were unnecessary and that the American oil companies could provide for the U.S. Navy.

One of the politicians who opposed the conservation was Senator Albert B. Fall,a member of the Ohio Gang, who later became Secretary of the Interior in 1921. The Ohio Gang was a group made up of politicians and industry leaders who believe that the government control business and that we shouldn't deal in the affairs of Europe. Fall using his power as the Secretary of the Interior convinced the Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby to turn over the control of the oil fields over to him. Fall then leases the Teapot Dome to Harry Sinclair's Mammoth Oil Company and he reserve Elk Hills to Edward Doheny's Pan American Petroleum Company. In return for leasing the oil Fields, Sincair and Doheny gave Fall a total about $400,000

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