Albert Fall – 1861-1944

Fall became a symbol of national political corruption rampant in the administration of President Warren G. Harding. He was Harding’s secretary of interior from 1921 to 1923. In 1924, a Senate investigation revealed that Fall had taken a bribe to lease to private oil interests naval oil reserve lands in Wyoming’s Teapot Dome reserve and other reserves in California. The Teapot Dome Scandal rocked the nation, and Fall, convicted of bribery in 1929, served nine months of a one-year sentence.