Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
The Alaska Historical Society opposes President Trump’s unilateral name change of Denali, our state’s highest mountain, to Mount McKinley, and applauds efforts by Alaska’s two U.S. senators to pursue legislation to overturn the president’s act and restore the mountain’s broadly supported name.
Within hours after becoming president for his second term on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order renaming Denali, North America’s tallest mountain, Mount McKinley. He said: “We will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs.” Trump acted without consulting Alaskans, who public opinion polls show broadly support the name of Denali.
Within weeks after Trump’s act, the Alaska State Legislature passed a resolution urging the president to reconsider. The AHS on January 28, 2025, wrote U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Representative Nick Begich, urging them to introduce legislation overturning the decision. On February 13, 2025, Senator Murkowski introduced legislation to rename the mountain Denali and require that any reference in U.S. laws, maps, regulations or other records refer to the mountain as Denali. Senator Sullivan is a co-sponsor of the bill.
Trump’s act reignited a long debate in Alaska and Ohio over the mountain’s name and has implications for other single-state presidential acts. For centuries before white explorers and settlers found their way to Alaska, the mountain was known by names the five Athabascan groups that historically lived around Denali referenced as “great mountain,” “the tall one” or “mountain-big.”
In 1896, a gold prospector passing through Interior Alaska called the mountain McKinley, after then presidential candidate William McKinley of Ohio. Twenty years later in 1916, American naturalist Charles Sheldon asked the Alaska Engineering Commission to call the area around the mountain “Mt. Denali National Park.” But a year later the park was named “Mount McKinley National Park” despite its being incompatible with the Athabascan way as they did not typically name places after people.
A renaming effort began in 1975, when Governor Jay Hammond and the Alaska Legislature petitioned the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to officially change the name to Denali. In an effort to protect the name of native son McKinley, the Ohio congressional delegation prevented the board from acting. In 1980, despite the official name-changing effort failing, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act changed the park’s name to Denali National Park and Preserve.
Historians have come to judge President McKinley as an imperialist who viewed colonized populations as inferior and incapable of self-government. The AHS believes McKinley exemplified the characteristics Alaskans have long resisted: discrimination and poor treatment of indigenous peoples, exploitation by distant colonialists and manipulation of markets for personal gain. McKinley never stepped foot in Alaska. Just before visiting Alaska in 2015, President Barack Obama directed his secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell to restore the name to Denali.
Rather than being ashamed of the name affixed to our state’s most prominent mountain, the AHS believes Alaskans want to be proud of the symbol of our state’s majesty and the rich history it represents. That is why it has pledged to support efforts by Alaska’s senators and others to stand up proudly for Alaska’s history and pursue legislation to return Denali as the rightful name of Alaska’s greatest natural landmark.
Adopted by the Board of Directors, Alaska Historical Society, March 4, 2025
Read our letter, sent to all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation, requesting that they “promptly introduce legislation to overturn President Trump’s executive order renaming Alaska’s tallest mountain, returning the traditional name favored by Alaska Native peoples and most Alaskans – Denali.”
The Alaska Historical Society weighs in on the renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley as special guests on National Public Radio.
Listen in to AHS Executive Director Jo Antonson on the history of the mountain’s name or read the transcript:
