Outside of the central Washington town of Zillah is the Teapot Dome Service Station. In the 1920s and 1930s a unique architecture proliferated in United States designed to catch the eye, and business, of passing motorists. This particular example of roadside architecture was built in 1922 when the news of the day was filled with details of the greatest political scandal (until Watergate) in US politics - The Teapot Dome Scandal. The service station remained active until almost the turn of the century.
President Harding's Interior Secretary, Albert Fall, was eventually sent to prison for accepting bribes. In his role as Interior Secretary, he had awarded leases of two oil fields, part of the Naval Oil Reserves, to a pair of oil companies. The scandal got its name from one of the oil fields involved: Teapot Dome. The terms of the leases, awarded without a competitive bidding processes, were technically legal. They were very favorable to the oil companies. What got Secretary Fall into trouble was that the deal was very favorable to his own bank account.
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