for this engaging discussion. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. all weekend long, american history tv is joining our partners toe showcase the history of casper, wyoming. to learn more about the city, visit www.c-span.org/ localcontent. we continue with our look at the city of casper. this is american history tv. ♪ in the early 20th century, oil production led to the rapid growth of casper, wyoming. broughtome oil field

the area into the national spotlight. >> the teapot dome scandal was probably the most significant presidential scandal in american history in the 20th century up until watergate, anyway. it implicated members of the cabinet. it certainly could have implicated president harding, had he lived. it became a rather notorious event, even today as they are preparing to sell off the teapot dome naval petroleum reserve. soon after the turn-of-the-century when the u.s. navy was starting to shift from those very clunky coal-burning battleships to oil-burning ships, it occurred

to various officials in the government that we might run out of oil. what is to happen if suddenly we are in the middle of a war with a fleet that is being powered by ships andfired suddenly we do not have any oil? >> so, the decision was made by the department of the navy to go out and find on public land some known oil reserves that were still on public land, set them aside from exploration and development, and in essence, save them in case of some future need that the navy might have in the event that there is a war and we run short on oil. the teapot dome oil field is located north of casper, essentially in the center of wyoming. roughly in the center of wyoming. this is the structural map of

the salt creek region of wyoming. here is the salt creek fields. it was an active field at the time of the teapot dome affair. here is teapot dome naval petroleum reserve. you see it outline here in yellow. creek flows this way and down here is this spot where teapot rock is located. teapot rock is how the dome, or the anticline got its name. the navy selected that verycular location because nearby was a very major oilfield , the salt creek oilfield. it was one of the largest oil-producing fields in the entire united states, if not the world in the early part of the 20th century. when this particular reserve was there was the belief

that underneath this area that was named for this rock that looked like a teapot at one time , nowadays it kind of looks like a chimney rock. at one time it had a handle, it had a spout. over the years, i think it was in the 1920's, the spout got broken off by a lightning strike and eventually the handle disappeared, too, from erosion. and now if you say it is up by teapot rock, well, how does that look like a teapot? it does not anymore. it once was a teapot. 1920,t location before that location was simply fenced and left in the public

domain and sort of watched over by officials from the department expectationwith the that the commercial developers because thislear is federal land that we are talking about. fall was1921, albert new mexico's first u.s. senator. he had had a career in the southwest as an oil developer, as more or -- miner, less a land mineral prospector. lauren g harding was elected president in november -- laurent hardingg -- warren g 1920.ected in november of

he announced that albert fall would be in his cabinet. property of the navy. it was a preserve set aside for the navy for their purposes. the naval secretary, also a poker-plane buddy of warren somehow coaxed or theinced to transfer authority over the naval petroleum reserves to the interior department, where it very handily -- albert fall had a plan. he was later convicted of accepting bribes from a couple of oilmen for allowing them exclusive access to these naval petroleum reserve.

it was done under the table. the evidence that albert fall's seizedhowed that he had -- received substantial amount of cash from harry sinclair to allow them an exclusive right to drill an area that was set aside for drilling. it was not to be drilled on. he was, in essence, doing what the interior department was specifically banned from doing. that is leasing out those oil fields to anybody. even worse, if they were to be leased out, they should have been leased out on a competitive basis. there is a man named leslie miller who is an independent oilmen down in cheyenne. leslie miller started hearing these rumors from his friends up around casper that sinclair oil company trucks were seen going

into the teapot dome naval petroleum reserve. it appeared they were going in there to do drilling and oil exploration. he was very curious about this thought, well, there are a lot of us in the business that would really love to have an opportunity to drill in teapot dome. it happened that he was visiting with his old friend up in sheridan, senator john b kendrick. kendrick was a democrat who represented wyoming in the senate in those years. he mentioned to kendrick, could you look into this and see what is going on? something is happening at teapot dome. question of her fall to how this occurred. fall was very foggy as to how this particular activity had gone on. hardingce, president

was obtuse about how this at all occurred. as time passed and asked the senate started investigating the activities of albert fall and the interior department with respect to teapot dome, they discovered that hobart fall had not issued -- albert fall had opportunity for competitive bidding at teapot dome. suddenly there is this contract signed between the interior department and these two oilmen indeveloping the resources these naval petroleum reserve. there is a very interesting legal aftermath of the convention -- conviction of albert fall for accepting bribes from these two oil guys. sinclairened was that 's company, that he organize calling it the mammoth oil company -- the mammoth oil company continued to develop the

oilfield at teapot dome. had everyed that he right to do it because the contract that had been issued to him by the interior department was still a valid contract. well, the federal government would have none of it because clearly this contract was obtained through fraud, through bribery, and so the federal inernment brought an action district court in wyoming. a contrary view of how that contract was arrived at, apparently. kennedyemoirs, t blake claims that when that contract rescission case came between -- before his court, he took the position that a contract is a contract. it is sacrosanct.

unless there is overwhelming evidence that the contract was obtained through fraud or bribes, then it should be enforced. what we have here are copies of an unpublished manuscript written by t blake kennedy. -- ithis i'll die a death is his autobiography that he wrote late in his judicial career. the last paragraph sums it up. this chapterlose with the question of curiosity which has been continuously operating in my mind involving the query as to whether or not the naval petroleum reserve number three is eventually , any substantial amount of oil will be found there. while it is speculation, i am of oil,osition that any especially in the upper sands, will have found to be have drained off through the intense

operation of the adjoining salt creek fields. the circuit court of appeals overturned t blake kennedy's decision because they clearly found there was bribery involved in that particular contract. on appeal by sinclair to the company to theuntr supreme court of the united states, the supreme court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court of appeals and allow the government to rescind the teapot dome oil drilling contract with mammoth oil. there has always been a question as to how much president harding has known about the teapot dome affair. it is pretty clear that albert fall had to get president harding's authority in order to from theisdiction department of the navy to the department of the interior. harding must have known that

there was something untoward about that kind of a request and making that kind of a switch. but, as i guess you could say good luck would have it in the case of warren harding, he traveled west the summer after , question started being asked about the scandal, came to wyoming, went up to alaska, became the first president to visit alaska, came down to san francisco, and then promptly and rather suddenly died in san francisco. the investigation was just heating up at that point. there were a lot of people who questioned whether or not warren harding had more direct information about the scandal than he had let on previously. albert fall was so close to him personally, and so was edwin

denby, the naval secretary. will alwaystorians remain curious, i guess, as to how much did the president know and when did he know it? fall became the first cap an officer to be convicted -- cabinet officer to be convicted of a felony while serving in the u.s. cabinet. i don't mean a pun, but his fall from grace was pretty hard and pretty dramatic. he went off to federal prison. he eventually got out of federal prison and in the early years of world war ii, some 20 years after the teapot dome affair, he comein a security and in essentially, poverty in el paso, texas. what happened at teapot dome is that the mammoth oil company,

sinclair, was told to remove all of their materials, all of their trucks, suspended drilling, and that is the way the teapot dome field set for the next 80 years until the federal government started using it for various experimental drilling and furious other energy-related 1980's. in the i'm significantly later than what one would have expected within oilfield of that scope and located where it was located, so close to very, very good-producing oilfields. throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring casper, wyoming. our local content vehicle team traveled there to learn about its rich history.

learn more about casper and other cities on the city stops tour at c-span.org/localcontent. you are >> history bookshelf features writers and airs every weekend at this time. the c.i.a. assisted th assistedn overthrowing the government. historythor and professor ali ansari talks about and iran relations. he argues that both sides missed in normalizing relations. this 2006 event was hosted by d.c. international connection. is about an hour and 40 minutes.