Alaska Republicans opposed President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change back the name of North America’s highest mountain, Denali, to Mount McKinley, as it was known for many decades.
Last Sunday, at AmericaFest organized by Turning Point USA, Trump praised former President William McKinley and suggested that the mountain’s name revert to its former name in his honor.
Mount McKinley, now known as Denali, was unofficially named in 1896 by a gold prospector who heard that William McKinley had won the Republican nomination for president. The name was officially recognized by the federal government in 1917. The mountain was renamed Denali in 2015 to honor the native Koyukon Athabaskan name, which means “the High One”
“William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States…the vast sums of money that he brought into our country,” Trump said, “the person really who got us the money that President Theodore Roosevelt used to build the Panama Canal and a lot of other things, that’s one of the reasons that we’re going to bring back the name of Mount McKinley because I think he deserves it.”
The 25th U.S. president, just like Trump, was a supporter of protective tariffs. During his term, he never visited Alaska. Perhaps, that is also why state senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan opposed the MAGA leader’s proposed name change and reiterated their support for the mountain’s Koyukon Athabascan toponym.
The name Denali has been used by the state’s indigenous people for centuries. “There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali – the Great One,” Murkowski wrote in a post on X.
This is not the first time Trump has considered restoring the old toponym for the imposing Alaskan high ground. Back in 2017, when he was in the White House, he proposed the measure to the state’s Republican senators, who also opposed it at the time.
In 2015 it was President Barack Obama who changed its name to Denali, to pay tribute to Alaska Native peoples. Barring any resounding last-minute reversals, then, it is quite likely that North America’s highest peak will continue to bear its current name.
