Trump Signs Official Order To Restore Denali Name Back To Former President’s Moniker

Alaska was part of a flurry of Presidential orders sign by the new Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump on his inauguration day. Besides his lengthy order that would reinvigorate gas and oil drilling opportunities in the state, Trump is following through with a push to restore the nation’s largest peak, Denali, to being named for presumably one of the 45th and now 47th President’s idols, tariff-happy William McKinley.

in 2015, Mount McKinley was officially renamed Denali to pay homage to Alaska’s Native roots. But Trump’s order signed on Monday would change it back to be named for a former President who never visited Alaska before an assassin’s bullet killed him in 1901.

Alaska’s News Source has more details;

According to the National Park Service, a prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak “Mount McKinley” for William McKinley, who was elected president that year. McKinley had never been to Alaska. The name was formally recognized by the U.S. government until it was changed in 2015 by the Obama administration to Denali, to reflect the traditions of Alaska Natives and preference of many Alaskans. The move drew opposition from lawmakers in McKinley’s home state of Ohio.

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. The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Athabascan tribes in Interior Alaska, spent years advocating for the peak to be recognized as Denali. …

“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 document states.

And while Alaska’s U.S. House and Senate politicians were in lock step with his drilling and other Alaska-related orders signed on Monday, at least one is not thrilled with the mighty mountain’s name change switcheroo.

Other Alaska politicians have stayed mostly silent on that matter (though in the past Sullivan, a diehard Trump supporter, has opposed the name change away from Denali). But plenty of others have weighed in on this issue, despite what seemed like an election centered – right or wrong – on improving the economy and lowering coats for Americans rather than name changes on mountains and gulfs.