JUNEAU, Alaska — President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to rename North America’s tallest peak, Denali in Alaska, as Mount McKinley — reviving an idea he’d floated years ago that at that time saw strong pushback from state political leaders.
Trump, who took office for a second time Monday, said he planned to “restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” Trump also announced plans to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Messages left for Alaska’s three-member Republican congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy weren’t immediately returned. Alaska’s U.S. senators in 2017 vehemently opposed a prior suggestion by Trump that the name Denali be changed back to Mount McKinley.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama changed the name to Denali to reflect the traditions of Alaska Natives and acknowledge the preference of many Alaska residents. The federal government in recent years has sought to change place names considered disrespectful to Native people.
Denali is an Athabascan word meaning “the high one” or “the great one.” The iconic 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain, snow-capped and dotted with glaciers, is in Denali National Park and Preserve.
A prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak “Mount McKinley” after President William McKinley, who had never been to Alaska. The name was formally recognized by the U.S. government until Obama changed it — in spite of opposition from lawmakers in McKinley’s home state of Ohio.
Trump raised the notion of a name change again during a rally late last year, following his election.
“McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president,” Trump said in December. “They took his name off Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was among those expressing opposition to a name change from Denali.
“You can’t improve upon the name that Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans bestowed on North America’s tallest peak, Denali – the Great One,” she said at that time, adding that the issue “should not be relitigated.”
The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Athabascan tribes in Interior Alaska, spent years advocating for the peak to be recognized as Denali.
McKinley, a Republican native of Ohio, was the 25th president. He was assassinated early in his second term in 1901.
Alaska and Ohio had been at odds over the name since at least the 1970s. Alaska had a standing request to change the name since 1975, when the legislature passed a resolution and then-Gov. Jay Hammond appealed to the federal government.