President-elect Donald Trump vowed on Sunday to rename North America’s tallest mountain back to Mount McKinley, after the 25th President of the United States. Former President Barak Obama officially renamed the mountain to “Denali” in 2015, one of several Athabaskan names for the mountain meaning “the tall one”.
The name Mount McKinley was officially designated when legislation was signed into law designating the area as a national park on February 26, 1917, but the name would be filled with controversy throughout its lifetime.
In 1975, State of Alaska petitioned the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to officially designate the mountain as Denali, but the Ohio congressional delegation, representing William McKinley’s home state, blocked the effort for several decades. In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act changed the park’s name to Denali National Park and Preserve, but the mountain kept its name.
Finally in 2015, President Barack Obama and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell took action to officially change the mountain’s name to Denali. William McKinley, who was President of the United States from 1897 through his assassination in 1901, was the governor of Ohio for two terms.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, commented on the mountain’s name following Donald Trump’s statement on X (formerly Twitter), stating that Denali is the only name worth for the mountain.
“There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali – the Great One.” – Lisa Murkowski