JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday calling for North America’s tallest peak — Denali in Alaska — to be renamed Mount McKinley, reviving an idea he’d floated years ago and drawing a rebuke from Alaska’s Republican senior senator.
The order came hours after Trump, who took office for a second time Monday, said he planned to “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.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a statement said she disagrees strongly with Trump wanting to change Denali's 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 said.
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.
Trump's executive order celebrates McKinley, saying the 25th president “championed tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights.” McKinley, a Republican, 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 document states.
Messages seeking comment about the name change also were left for the other members of Alaska’s congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Alaska's U.S. senators in 2017 vehemently opposed a prior suggestion by Trump that the name Denali revert back to Mount McKinley.
Trump revisited the topic during a rally late last year, following his election.
“McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president,” Trump said in December. “They took his name off Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people.”
Alaska and Ohio had been at odds over the name for decades. Alaska had a standing request to change the name since 1975, when the legislature passed a resolution and then-Gov. Jay Hammond appealed to the federal government.
In the same executive order Monday, Trump also called for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Among other executive actions, Trump rescinded a 2023 decision by then-President Joe Biden barring drilling on nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast of Alaska. The U.S. Department of Interior at that time said there had not been a federal oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic Ocean since 2007.
The 2023 decision came around the same time the Biden administration approved a large oil project, known as Willow, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, angering environmentalists. Litigation around the approval of Willow is still pending.
Becky Bohrer, The Associated Press
