The nation’s 27th President, William Howard Taft (1909 to 1913), was the heaviest chief executive to ever sit in the Oval Office. For more than a century, a famous myth has posited that Taft got stuck in the bathtub one night when he was bathing at the Executive Mansion. Although a colorful anecdote, the tale is completely false. It is true that a few weeks after Taft was elected, a New York company crafted a seven-foot-long, 41-inch-wide porcelain tub for the White House, capable of holding up to four averaged-sized men comfortably. The bathtub was installed on a warship carrying Taft to inspect the Panama Canal, and similar tubs were installed in the White House, onboard the presidential yacht, and inside Taft’s brother’s summer home in Texas. But Taft never got stuck in this tub, or any other sort of porcelain prison. Taft is associated with at least one bathroom-related mishap, however: In July 1915, he reportedly miscalculated the liquid displacement of a hotel tub in Cape May, New Jersey, and water soaked through the ceiling of the downstairs dining room below.
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