Ransacked offices, illegal wiretaps, disinformation campaigns, partisan conflict over a Senate investigation, extensive press coverage. Sound familiar?
On April 14, 1922, the Wall Street Journal reported a secret arrangement in which the Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Hall leased the U.S. naval petroleum reserve at Wyoming's Teapot Dome to a private oil company. These reserves were tracts of public land in which it was intended that oil should be kept in its natural reservoirs, or domes, for the future use of the Navy. Teapot Dome, near Casper, Wyoming, acquired its name from a rock resembling a teapot that rose from the oil bearing land. A senator from Wisconsin arranged for a Senate Committee on Public Lands to investigate the matter. His suspicions deepened after someone ransacked his office. The inquiry sought answers to many questions, including "How did Interior Secretary Albert Hall get so rich so quickly?"
One cabinet member eventually went to prison for his part in the affair, and a number of Washington officials were implicated. The Teapot Dome incident became a symbol of supposed excesses and government graft and corruption.
To log this virtual cache, find the plaque on the outside of the building that refers to the underground storage compliance number and email this number to me.
