Trump vows to rename Denali, North America's tallest mountain

23/12/2024 6:07

U.S. President-elect

Donald Trump said on Sunday he will rename Denali, Alaska

natives' name for North America's tallest mountain, after

William McKinley, the 25th U.S. president who was assassinated

in 1901.



Democratic former President Barack Obama in 2015 officially

renamed the mountain as Denali, siding with the state of Alaska

and ending a decades-long naming battle. The peak had been

officially called Mount McKinley since 1917.



"They took his name off Mount McKinley," Trump said in a

speech to supporters in Phoenix. "He was a great president,"

Trump, a Republican, said, adding that his administration will

"bring back the name of Mount McKinley because I think he

deserves it."



The mountain, which has an elevation of more than 20,000

feet (6,100 meters), was named Mount McKinley in 1896 after a

gold prospector exploring the region heard that McKinley, a

champion of the gold standard, had won the Republican nomination

for president.



The U.S. Department of the Interior, in the 2015 order that

was signed by Obama changing the name to Denali, noted that

McKinley had never visited the mountain and had no "significant

historical connection to the mountain or to Alaska."



Denali, the local Athabascan name, meaning "the High One,"

was officially designated as the peak's name in 1975 by the

state of Alaska, which then pressed the federal government to

also adopt the name.



McKinley, who served two terms as governor of Ohio before

becoming president in 1897, led the country to victory in the

Spanish-American War and raised protective tariffs to promote

U.S. industry, according to the White House website on

presidents.