President Trump vowed Monday to rename Alaska's 20,310-foot Denali, the highest mountain in North America, to Mt. McKinley, reigniting a long-standing dispute.
“We will restore the name of a great President, William McKinley, to Mt. McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs,” Trump said Monday after being sworn into office at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump also said and signaled that he intended to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America Sign implementing regulations implement the changes on his first day in office.
Trump described McKinley, the 25th president, as “a natural businessman” and praised the former president for “making our country very rich through tariffs and talent.” McKinley, a Republican, also expanded U.S. territory during the Spanish-American War.
A prospector named the peak Mt. McKinley in 1896 as a tribute to William McKinley after his presidential nomination – and the name stuck. However, there has been disagreement about the name for decades.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama renamed Mount Denali, a name long-cherished by Alaskans that roughly translates to “the big one.” Koyukon Athabascanan Alaskan native language.
The promise to rename Denali was rejected by environmental groups and Alaskan politicians, including Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
“There is only one name worthy of the highest mountain in North America: Denali – the Great,” Murkowski said wrote on X after Trump referenced the plan in a speech last month.
“No! It's Denali!” Alaska state Sen. Scott Kawaski, a Democrat, wrote alongside a photo of the snow-capped mountain on Bluesky last month.
The Sierra Club, a conservation group, said renaming the summit “goes against the wishes of Alaska Natives, Alaska elected officials and centuries of tradition.”
“The Koyukon people have known this mountain as 'Denali' for centuries, and even the state's elected officials oppose this attempt to rename it,” Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said in a statement. “It is clear that Donald Trump is more interested in culture war stunts than addressing the concerns of the American people.”
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a staunch Trump supporter, said last week that she would direct her staff to draft legislation for the renaming that would make it effective on federal maps and in administration policy. CBS New reported.
The debate over the name of the mountain goes back more than 100 years – before the creation of the national park in which the mountain rises. according to the National Park Service.
A team drafting legislation to create a park to protect wildlife disagreed over the name. A hunter and naturalist involved pushed for the park to be named “Mt. Denali National Park” in 1916 and refers to a name given to the mountain by indigenous people.
The federal government eventually named the towering peak of the Alaska Range “Mt. McKinley” in 1917, honoring the president who served from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. The park became Mt. McKinley National Park.
The debate flared up again in 1975 when the state of Alaska demanded that the mountain be named Denali. While the change was stalled for decades, the park was renamed Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980.