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President Trump Orders That Denali Be Renamed Mount McKinley

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By

Kurt Repanshek

Published Date

January 21, 2025

President Trump has ordered that Denali be renamed Mount McKinley/Rebecca Latson file

President Trump has given the Interior Department 30 days to rename the highest point in North American Mount McKinley, although he's not ordering that Denali National Park be renamed.

"In 1917, the country officially honored President McKinley through the naming of North America’s highest peak. Yet after nearly a century, President Obama’s administration, in 2015, stripped the McKinley name from federal nomenclature, an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice," Trump said in an executive order directing the name change of the mountain that carries an Athabascan name that translates to “the high one” or “the great one.”

"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," Trump added.

After Trump announced to a rally crowd in December that he was thinking of renaming Denali, which rises 20,310 feet, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, immediately took to social media to respond to Trump's suggestion.

“There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali — the Great One,” Murkowski wrote on X.

William McKinley, incidentally, never visited Alaska. The mountain came to be named after him when a prospector called it McKinley in honor of the president and the name became officially recognized.

Arguing about the proper name of the mountain has persisted for more than a century. Naturalist Charles Sheldon, who was instrumental in the creation of the area's national park, advocated for the name to be Denali. But, since Mount McKinley was the name recognized by the federal government when the national park was created, the park's first name was Mount McKinley National Park. It merged with Denali National Monument in 1980, and the entire unit took the official name Denali National Park and Preserve.

Trump's order also directed that the Gulf of Mexico be known going forward as the Gulf of America.

"The area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning nation and has remained an indelible part of America. The Gulf was a crucial artery for America’s early trade and global commerce," the order says. "It is the largest gulf in the world, and the United States coastline along this remarkable body of water spans over 1,700 miles and contains nearly 160 million acres. Its natural resources and wildlife remain central to America’s economy today.  The bountiful geology of this basin has made it one of the most prodigious oil and gas regions in the world, providing roughly 14 percent of our Nation’s crude-oil production and an abundance of natural gas, and consistently driving new and innovative technologies that have allowed us to tap into some of the deepest and richest oil reservoirs in the world."

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