Teapot Rock is a sandstone outcropping whose outline resembles a teapot, though weather has collapsed its handle and spout, and nearby the Teapot Dome scandal burst into national prominence in 1924. In 1909, President Taft had set aside the Teapot Dome Oilfield for the U.S. Navy in case of national emergency, angering private oil companies that had already filed claims and begun extracting oil there. Under President Harding, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall later took illegal control of the naval oil reserves from the Navy Department and in 1922 secretly leased Teapot Dome to Mammoth Oil, a Sinclair subsidiary, without competitive bidding while accepting bribes. Complaints from rival oil companies helped spark an investigation that expanded amid other Harding administration scandals and was fueled by suspicions raised by Fall's heavy private spending. The inquiry lasted nine years, involved two congressional hearings and many trials, including a Supreme Court trial, and exposed corrupt dealings among financiers and high-ranking government and military officials. During the turmoil, President Harding died, and Albert Fall resigned, as did Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and Attorney General Harry Daugherty. The scandal drew more media attention than any earlier political event and threatened to sway the 1924 presidential election. Teapot Dome was placed in receivership in 1924, and in 1927 control of the oil land returned to the Navy and the wells were sealed. During the previous five years of development, 87 wells had been drilled, including the largest producer in Wyoming history, and Mammoth Oil had built a 700-mile pipeline to the Missouri River, storage tanks, machine shops, pumping stations at Teapot Dome, and Navy structures at a seaport in New Hampshire. In 1931, Albert Fall became the first Cabinet officer convicted, fined, and imprisoned for a felony committed in office, while Harry Sinclair was acquitted of bribery but fined and jailed for contempt of court and of the Senate. The affair helped reveal to the public the close relationship between government and big business.