Trump promises to change the name of North America’s highest peak from Denali to Mount McKinley
President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to rename North America’s highest peak, Alaska’s Denali, as Mount McKinley — reviving an idea he floated years ago that was met with strong opposition from state political leaders at the time.
Trump, who took office for the second time on Monday, said he plans to “put the name of a great president, William McKinley, back on Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through customs and through talent.”
Trump also announced plans to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the American Gulf.
Messages left for Alaska’s three-member Republican congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy were not immediately returned. In 2017, Alaska’s U.S. senators strongly opposed Trump’s previous proposal to return the name Denali to Mount McKinley.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama changed name to Denali reflect Alaska Native traditions and acknowledge the preferences of many Alaskans. In recent years, the US federal government has sought to change place names that are considered disrespectful to indigenous people.
Denali is an Athabaskan word meaning “exalted” or “great”. The 6,190-meter high, snow-capped and glacier-studded iconic mountain is located in the Denali National Park and Preserve.
In 1896, an explorer named the peak “Mount McKinley” after President William McKinley, who had never been to Alaska. The name was officially recognized by the US government until Obama changed it — despite opposition from lawmakers in the state of Ohio, where McKinley is.
Trump raised the idea of a name change again during a rally late last year, after his election.
“McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president,” Trump said in December. “They took his name off Mount McKinley, didn’t they? That’s what they do to people.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was among those who voiced opposition to Denali’s name change.
“You can’t improve on the name that Alaska’s Koyukon Athabaskans gave to North America’s highest peak, Denali — The Great,” she said at the time, adding that the issue “should not be revisited.”
The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Athabaskan tribes in Alaska’s interior, has spent years advocating for the peak to be recognized as Denali.
McKinley, a Republican from Ohio who was the 25th president, was assassinated early in his second term in 1901 in Buffalo, New York.
Alaska and Ohio have been at odds over names since at least the 1970s. Alaska has had a standing request for a name change since 1975, when the Legislature passed a resolution and then-Gov. Jay Hammond addressed the federal government.
