Teapot could hit the spot for Zillah

It’s been sitting idle for more than two years, but Zillah’s landmark Teapot Dome gas station may not be sitting still much longer.

If city officials get their way, the 84-year-old teapot-shaped building could be moved into town, where it would be converted into a visitors center.

Rising fuel prices in March 2004 convinced owner Keith Strader to close the station that’s listed on the National Historic Register.

Now, Strader wants to sell the Teapot Dome and the two acres it’s situated on just southeast of Zillah along Yakima Valley Highway. The asking price is $125,000.

But city officials are hoping to cut a deal with Strader to purchase the building separately, says Zillah City Clerk Sharon Bounds.

“We’re not real interested in the property,” she says. “We just want the teapot.”

University of Washington students are currently researching what it would take to move the structure that was built in the shape of a teapot in 1922 — symbolizing the oil scandals that stained Warren G. Harding’s presidency. In 1921, he ordered oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyo., and Elk Hill, Calif., to be transferred from the Navy to the Department of Interior.

Ideally, the city would like to move the structure into town onto city property near Interstate 82, where it would house information on area tourism, says Mayor Gary Clark.

“This will be just another tool to use to get people off that freeway and into the local economy,” he says. “After all, we have what they want.”

(written by Phil Ferolito and taken from yakima-herald)