Overview
Albert Bacon Fall (November 26, 1861 – November 30, 1944) was a United States senator from New Mexico and the Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal; being the only person convicted as a result of the affair.
Albert Fall was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, to William R. and Edmonia Taylor Fall. He attended schools as a child in Nashville, Tennessee, but was primarily self-educated. By age eleven Fall was employed in a cotton factory.
Fall was admitted to the bar in 1891. He served in the New Mexico House of Representatives from 1891 to 1892, and served on the territorial council from 1892 until 1893. Fall was appointed judge of the third judicial district in 1893, and associate justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court later the same year. Fall served on the Territorial Council again from 1896 to 1897, and as the territory's attorney general in 1897. He again served on the Territorial Council from 1902 to 1904.
During the Spanish–American War, Fall served as captain of an infantry company. He served as attorney general again in 1907. In 1910 he was a delegate to the territory's constitutional convention.
Fall was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in March 1921. Soon after his appointment, Harding convinced Edwin Denby, the Secretary of the Navy, that Fall's department should take over responsibility for the Naval Reserves at both Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This last setting became the namesake of the scandal to erupt in April 1922, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary Fall had decided that two of his friends, oilmen Harry F. Sinclair (Mammoth Oil Corporation) and Edward L. Doheny (Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company), should be given leases to drill in parts of these Naval Reserves without open bidding. In exchange, Fall accepted bribes. The investigation found Fall guilty of bribery and conspiracy as a result of $385,000 having been paid to him by Edward L. Doheny.