Download August 11, 2016 – Our Old Bookcase Photo Caption: This Teapot

August 11, 2016 – Our Old Bookcase
Photo Caption: This Teapot Dome well was flowing, near Casper, Wyoming, at the site known for
The Federal Government Teapot Scandal in the 1920’s.
OUR OLD BOOKCASE
By Joyce L. Alig, President, Mercer County Historical Society, Inc.
The Teapot Dome Oil Field was one of the sites our daughter Colleen and I visited, as we attended the
National Petroleum History Institute [NPHI] Symposium, July 28-30, at Casper, Wyoming. Colleen
volunteered at the Mercer County Historical Museum the years I served as Museum Director.
While doing research for a book about the History of the Oil and Gas Wells in Mercer County, of
Northwest Ohio, I became a Member of the National Petroleum History Institute. Jeff Spencer, President
of NPHI, invited me to attend the July 2016 Symposium. In July 2017, the NPHI will host their Annual
Symposium at Findlay, Ohio, with the Bus Tour to see the site of the Lima Oil Fields, and to Celina to see
the site of the oil derricks of the 1880’s and 1890’s of the oil field on Grand Lake Saint Marys.
The Story of the Teapot Scandal brought National notoriety to the Teapot Dome Oil Field in 1922. The
name “Teapot” originated with a tall rock formation, which looked like a teapot, with a handle and spout.
In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson set aside the Teapot Dome Oilfields as a Naval Petroleum Reserve.
The time era was World War I. The Teapot Dome Oilfields were transferred to the Department of the
Interior in 1921. Warren G. Harding served as the 28th President of the United States 1921-1923, when he
died suddenly in San Francisco in August 1923. In 1922, A.B. Fall, Secretary of the Interior, leased the
Teapot Domes, to Mammoth Oil Co., without any competitive bids, in exchange for $400,000.00 in
“loans.” The source of those funds originated with oilmen Edward Doheny and Harry Sinclair who were
planning to open the oil reserves to drilling.
The Teapot Dome lease became public knowledge in 1922. President Harding died in 1923. U.S.
Senator T.J. Walsh’s investigation into the scandal resulted in criminal prosecution of several public
figures, including Albert Fall. Calvin Coolidge became the 29th U.S. President, 1923-1929. The U.S.
Supreme Court curtailed production in the oilfields in 1924, and invalidated those 1922 leases in 1927.
Control of the site was returned to the Navy. But the oil field remained essentially closed for almost half
a century. In 1977, jurisdiction of the Teapot Dome Reserve was transferred to the Energy Department.
The Oilfield was transferred to the Department’s Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center in 1993. For
nearly four decades, over 22 million barrels of oil were produced, putting over $569 million for the U.S.
Treasury.
In 2013, The Energy Department recommended to Congress that the oilfield be sold to the private sector.
With memories of the 1922 scandal leasing without competitive bidding, the 2013 sale was made through
a competitive bidding process which closed on October 16, 2014. On January 30, 2015 the Energy
Department finalized a deal to sell the oil field to New York-based Stranded Oil Resources Corporation, a
subsidiary of Allegheny Capital Corporation, for $45.2 million. The sale consisted of about 9000 acres of
land transferred to Stranded Oil, with about 500 additional acres transferred the following May. The
delay was for the Energy Department to establish a conservation easement to protect and preserve
historical sites of the property. Most of the easily accessible oil in the oil field had already been tapped
out since drilling resumed in the mid-1970's. Stranded Oil specializes in enhanced oil recovery, or
recharging depleted oil fields with techniques such as injecting carbon dioxide underground.
The Mercer County Historical Society Members will be honored to share the history of the 19th Century
Oil Field of Grand Lake Saint Marys, with the Members of the National Petroleum History Institute
Symposium, who come from across the United States, to visit Ohio in July 2017.
[The Mercer County Historical Society President Joyce Alig may be contacted at 3054 Burk-St. Henry
Road, Saint Henry, OH 45883, or [email protected] or 419-678-2614.]