The First US Cabinet Member Ever Sent To Jail Was From El Paso

Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior when Warren G. Harding was POTUS, started out as a Senator for New Mexico who, somehow, lived in El Paso.

Fall eventually earned himself a spot on the USA's 10 worst cabinet members list after being jailed for his role in the Teapot Dome Scandal. He was one of New Mexico's first Senators and the first Senator ever jailed for illegal activity while in office.

He built a huge mansion here in El Chuco quite a while before he got himself locked up in the New Mexico State Prison near Santa Fe for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

The Teapot Dome Scandal

After U.S. Pres. Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome (Wyoming) reserves (April 7, 1922). He granted similar rights to Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum Company for the Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills reserves in California (1921–22). - Britannica

What Happened To Fall?

He was a lawyer living in Las Cruces when he opened up a law firm here in El Paso. He built the "Fall Mansion", at 1725 Arizona, in 1906 before his political career took off. He probably should have quit while he was ahead - the Teapot Dome scandal brought that to a screeching halt and landed him in the New Mexico State Penitentiary.

READ MORE; Deadliest Prison Riot In US History Was At New Mexico State Penitentiary  

He did almost a year in the New Mexico State Pen before returning to El Paso with a prison record and, as the saying goes, "broke as a joke". Over the years, he lost his entire fortune, two of his kids and his wife before dying himself in El Paso in 1944.

His El Paso Mansion

His home has changed owners a few times over the decades. Most recently, the city seized it, fixed it up and sold it, (for way less than it was valued or that they even spent fixing it up), to a group of investors from Edge Limited Company.

The city of El Paso spent about $2.3 million fixing up the place, then placed its value at $1.6 million before selling it to Edge for only $840,000.