Trump Renames Denali Back To Mt. McKinley On Day One, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That Continent's Tallest Mountain Was Going By Its Indigenous Name
WASHINGTON. President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order on Monday formally restoring the name "Mount McKinley" to the 20,310-foot Alaskan peak Indigenous Athabaskans have called Denali for at least 10,000 years, citing what the White House described as a long-standing crisis in which the tallest mountain on the North American continent had been permitted to bear a name unaffiliated with any 19th-century Ohio Republican.
The reversal undoes a 2015 decision by then-President Barack Obama, who, at the request of the State of Alaska and after consultation with Alaska Native groups, had formally recognized "Denali," the name used by the people living within sight of the mountain for most of human history, as the peak's official federal designation. President Trump, in remarks to reporters, called the change "a great honor" for President William McKinley, a tariff enthusiast killed in 1901 who never visited Alaska, never climbed the mountain, and is not believed to have ever expressed an opinion about it.
The administration described the renaming as part of a broader executive order titled "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," which directs the Interior Department to review additional federal place names for ideological compliance. "President McKinley was a great president, a great tariff president, and a great man," said one senior White House official, who declined to specify which other 19th-century white men's names would be applied to which Indigenous landmarks but indicated that the list was being prepared.
Officials at the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, the statutorily designated body that formally approves such changes, were informed of the new policy via the order itself. The Alaska Federation of Natives, which had spent decades lobbying for the Denali designation, was not consulted. The State of Alaska, whose Republican congressional delegation had personally requested the 2015 restoration, was also not consulted.
Asked whether any of the rebranded landmarks might bear the President's own name, a Trump Organization spokesperson declined to comment, but noted that Trump-branded properties already include a residential tower, a Florida estate, a New Jersey golf course, a Scottish golf course, a Doral resort, a former Atlantic City casino, a former Plaza Hotel, a defunct steak company, a defunct vodka, a defunct airline, a defunct university, a presidential aircraft slated for personal post-presidency use, and a digital memecoin.
At press time, the Athabaskan word for the mountain, which translates roughly to "the tall one," had been deemed insufficiently American and removed from federal signage.