Trump Says He’ll Rename Denali To Mount McKinley

Topline

President Donald Trump said one of his first actions after returning to office Monday will be renaming Denali—the highest peak in North America—to Mount McKinley, the Alaska mountain’s name prior to 2015, a move he has suggested in the past to honor former President William McKinley.

A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in … [+] the background.

Key Facts

Trump said in his speech after taking the oath of office, “we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs.”

Denali had officially been named Mount McKinley in the eyes of the government since 1917, and and the debate over its name had gone on for that long—if not longer—with the Koyukon Athabascan people who lived near the mountain calling it Denali.

It was first named Mount McKinley in 1896 by prospector William Dickey, who named it after then-presidential candidate McKinley.

In 1916—before the area was named a national park—Charles Sheldon asked the Alaska Engineering Commission to call it “‘Mt Denali National Park’ so that the true old Indian [sic] name of Mt Denali (meaning ‘the Great One’) will thus be preserved,” according to the National Park Service.

In 1917, though, the park was named “Mount McKinley National Park” despite it being incompatible with the Athabascan way as they did not typically name places after people.

A renaming effort began in 1975, according to the NPS, when the state of Alaska petitioned for the name to be officially changed to Denali, and in 1980—despite the official effort not succeeding—the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act changed the park’s name to Denali National Park and Preserve.

Finally, in 2015, President Barack Obama restored the name to Denali in part to achieve his campaign promise of improving relations between the federal government and Native American tribes, The New York Times reported.

McKinley never visited the mountain and had no significant historical ties to the area, according to the resolution ultimately renaming it.

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Chief Critic

Alaska’s two senators, both Republicans, have opposed renaming Denali as Mount McKinley. In December after Trump floated the idea of changing the name, the Anchorage Daily News reported Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan came out in support of keeping the Athabascan place name for the mountain. Murkowski said on X, formerly known as Twitter, “there is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali – the Great One.” Sullivan said through a representative he “prefers the name that the very tough, very strong, very patriotic Athabaskan people gave the mountain thousands of years ago.”

Why Does Trump Like Mckinley?

Trump has praised McKinley, the 25th president, in the past because of the tariffs he implemented. As a representative, McKinley introduced the McKinley Tariff, which passed in 1890 and dramatically increased taxes on foreign products. Trump himself has said he wants to increase tariffs, and has pitched a universal tariff on almost all imports and greater levies on products from China, Canada and Mexico.

News Peg

Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president on Monday afternoon, and made the comment about Denali in his speech after taking the oath of office. His inauguration was historic: he became the oldest to ever be inaugurated and just the second in history to serve two non-consecutive terms. Trump spoke of making America great again, immigration policies, putting an end to the “unfair weaponization of our Justice Department” and a number of other points he regularly touched on while campaigning. (Read live updates of the inauguration here.)

Will Trump Rename Gulf Of Mexico To ‘gulf Of America’?

Denali isn’t the only name change Trump is eyeing. The president also said one of his first actions will be renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, something he has talked about regularly in recent weeks. In early January, Trump said he’s seeking the name change in retaliation for immigration from Mexico, which he called “a very dangerous place.”