JUNEAU, Alaska — On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to revert the name of North America’s tallest mountain back to Mount McKinley. This decision has reignited a debate that has persisted for years, prompting pushback from Alaska’s senior Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski.
The announcement came shortly after Trump took office again on that day, during which he expressed his belief that the name Mount McKinley is deserving of restoration in honor of the 25th president. He asserted, “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.”
Murkowski issued a strong statement opposing this name change, emphasizing the significance of the mountain’s original name. “Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial,” she articulated.
Historically, a gold prospector named the peak “Mount McKinley” in 1896 to honor William McKinley, who had been elected president that same year; however, McKinley never visited Alaska. It wasn’t until 2015, under the Obama administration, that the U.S. government officially changed the name to Denali, aligning it with the preferences of the local Indigenous communities and many residents of Alaska. This change was met with disapproval from politicians in Ohio, McKinley’s home state.
The name Denali derives from the Athabascan language, meaning “the high one” or “the great one.” Standing at 20,310 feet (6,190 meters), this majestic mountain, adorned with snow and glaciers, is situated within Denali National Park and Preserve. The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a coalition of Athabascan tribes in Interior Alaska, fought for the mountain’s renaming for years.
In the executive order, Trump praised President McKinley for his contributions to U.S. economic growth, noting that he was a proponent of tariffs that bolstered domestic manufacturing and advanced the country’s industrial expansion. McKinley, a member of the Republican Party, was assassinated early in his second term in 1901.
“This order honors President McKinley for giving his life for our great Nation and dutifully recognizes his historic legacy of protecting America’s interests and generating enormous wealth for all Americans,” the directive reads.
Inquiries were made to obtain comments from other members of Alaska’s congressional team and Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy concerning the proposed name change. In 2017, Alaska’s U.S. senators firmly opposed an earlier suggestion from Trump to revert Denali’s name to Mount McKinley.
The topic resurfaced at a rally late last year, where Trump remarked, “McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president. They took his name off Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people.”
For decades, Alaska and Ohio have clashed over the mountain’s name. The request to change it has existed since 1975, when the Alaska legislature passed a resolution and then-Governor Jay Hammond appealed to the federal government for redress.
In the same executive order, Trump also proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Among several other executive directives, he rescinded a 2023 decision by former President Joe Biden that prohibited drilling on nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s northern coast. At that time, the U.S. Department of the Interior stated that no federal oil and gas lease sales had taken place in the Arctic Ocean since 2007.
The 2023 decision coincided with the Biden administration’s approval of a significant oil project known as Willow, located in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which was met with ire from environmentalists. Legal challenges concerning the Willow project are still ongoing.
