President Donald Trump vowed Monday to rename North America’s highest peak, Denali in Alaska, to Mount McKinley – revisiting an idea he floated years ago that was met with fierce opposition from the state’s political leaders at the time.
Trump, who took office for the second time on Monday, said he plans to “return the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.” President McKinley has greatly damaged our country through tariffs made rich by talent.”
Trump also announced plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Messages left for Alaska’s three-member Republican congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy were not immediately returned. Alaska’s U.S. senators in 2017 vehemently rejected an earlier proposal by Trump to change the name Denali back to Mount McKinley.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama changed the name to Denali to reflect Alaska Native traditions and recognize the fondness of many Alaskans. The U.S. federal government in recent years has attempted to change place names that were viewed as disrespectful to Native peoples.
Denali is an Athabascan word meaning “the high one” or “the great one.” The iconic 20,000-foot, snow-capped, glacier-studded mountain is located in Denali National Park and Preserve.
A prospector named the peak “Mount McKinley” in 1896, after President William McKinley, who had never been to Alaska. The name was officially recognized by the U.S. government until Obama changed it, despite opposition from lawmakers in McKinley’s home state of Ohio.
Trump raised the idea of a name change again at a rally late last year after his election.
“McKinley was a very good, perhaps a great, president,” Trump said in December. “You took his name from Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people.”
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski was among those who opposed changing Denali’s name.
“You can’t improve on the name given by Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans to North America’s highest mountain, Denali – the Great,” she said at the time, adding that the issue “should not be revisited.”
The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Athabascan tribes in interior Alaska, campaigned for years to have the peak recognized as Denali.
McKinley, an Ohio Republican and 25th president, was assassinated in Buffalo, New York, early in his second term in 1901.
Alaska and Ohio have been at odds over the name since at least the 1970s. Alaska has had a standing request for a name change since 1975, when the legislature passed a resolution and then-Gov. Jay Hammond appealed to the federal government.
