Carolynne Harris

Carolynne Harris is a museum consultant with more than 20 years of planning and developing new museums, renovations, expansions and content-rich exhibitions. After positions at the Smithsonian Institution, she ran her own consulting business for 12 years, and currently is Vice President running the Museums Practice at Arts Consulting Group in Denver.

Teapot Dome, the U.S. Marines and a President’s Reputation

In August 1922, five U.S. Marines “invaded” the U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve at Teapot Dome in central Wyoming to evict oil drillers the government had determined were there illegally. Bribery connected with acquiring those drilling rights eventually led to the Teapot Dome scandal—one of the worst in U.S. politics.

Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center at Teapot Dome Oil Field

The late 20th-century history of the Teapot Dome Oilfield, long after the end of the political scandal that made it famous, demonstrates an interesting public-private partnership that continued through eight and a half decades of the oil business in Wyoming and the West.