President Donald J. Trump’s plan to return Denali, the Alaska Native name for North America’s tallest peak, to its earlier name, Mount McKinley, has run into opposition from Alaska lawmakers.
Shortly after taking the oath of office on Monday, Mr. Trump surprised many in the state when he announced “we will 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,” he said. “He was a natural businessman, and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama.”
But Alaska’s two senators, Lisa Murkowsi and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, said they wanted to keep Denali National Park and Preserve as is, calling Denali the rightful name of the awe-inspiring white peaks, 20,310 feet above sea level in the home of the Koyukon people and other Alaska Native groups.
“I prefer the name Denali that was given to that great mountain by the great patriotic Koyukon Athabascan people thousands of years ago,” Mr. Sullivan said in a video.
In a statement, Ms. Murkowski said she disagreed with Mr. Trump’s decision. “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. “For years, I advocated in Congress to restore the rightful name for this majestic mountain to respect Alaska’s first people who have lived on these lands for thousands of years. This is an issue that should not be relitigated.”
As the story goes, William Dickey, a prospector in Alaska in the late 1800s on the hunt for gold in the Cook Inlet, admired William McKinley, who was then the president-elect.
Mr. McKinley, who was from Ohio, had no known connection to Alaska and never visited the mountain, but he was a supporter of the gold standard, so Mr. Dickey was a fan. Mr. Dickey used the name Mount McKinley in an article in the New York Sun in 1897 and it stuck. The name Mount McKinley became even more popular after the president’s assassination in 1901.
Alaska Native groups and lawmakers spent decades trying to get the mountain recognized as Denali, which was how the Koyukon people referred to the mountain long before the United States was founded. Other Native groups in the area have their own names for the peak.
For years, Denali versus McKinley was like a game of legislative Ping-Pong. Alaska lawmakers introduced bills to call the mountain Denali and then a lawmaker from Ohio would file a bill to retain McKinley.
In 2015, the Obama administration renamed the mountain Denali.
Sally Jewell, who was the Interior secretary at the time, said that she did not believe Mr. Trump has the authority to change the name back to Mount McKinley. She said that authority rests with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a federal body that oversees standardized geographic names.
Any proponent of a name change is required by law to make the case before the board, which is made up of representatives of various government agencies. The chairman, Michael Tischler of the Interior department, did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the law, if the board does not act in a “reasonable” amount of time, the Interior secretary does have the authority to change a name. Ms. Jewell said in the case of Denali, Alaska tried for about 40 years to replace Mount McKinley with the Indigenous name and no objections were raised in the state when she did so.
“It is generally accepted as an Alaska Native name and certainly preferred over Mount McKinley,” Ms. Jewell said in an interview.
Mr. Trump’s affinity for Mr. McKinley appears to stem in part from a shared taste for tariffs. In his executive order, Mr. Trump highlighted that Mr. McKinley had “championed tariffs” that he said expanded the U.S. economy, a model that Mr. Trump has said he will follow.
Mr. Trump suggested changing the name in 2017 during his first term, but Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Murkowski objected. Mr. Sullivan at the time told Alaska Public Radio that he had informed Mr. Trump that his wife is Athabascan “and if you change that name back now she’s gonna be really, really mad.”
His executive order this week also seeks to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The administration does have more leeway there and could simply use Gulf of America in federal references. Other countries don’t have to follow suit, though. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico responded to Mr. Trump’s plan by suggesting America should be renamed América Mexicana, or Mexican America.
Gerad M. Smith, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said the name Denali would persist despite Mr. Trump’s efforts.
“Mr. Trump might get the name of the mountain renamed to McKinley, but it’s had its native name for thousands of years,” Dr. Smith said. “Regardless of whether it’s the official name, they’ll still remember that it is Denali for thousands of years after.”
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