Trump promises to rename Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, as Mt McKinley

Written by Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, said on Sunday that he will rename Denali, the name of the Alaska natives, the tallest mountain in North America, after William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States who was assassinated in 1901.

Former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2015 officially renamed the mountain Denali, matching the state of Alaska and ending a decades-long naming battle. The peak has 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,” said Trump, a Republican, adding that his administration “will bring back the Mount McKinley name because I think it deserves it.”

The mountain, with 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 gold standard champion, had won the Republican presidential nomination.

The US Department of the Interior, in a 2015 executive order 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, an Athabascan place name, meaning “High,” was officially designated as the peak’s name in 1975 by the state of Alaska, which then pressured the federal government to adopt the name as well.

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 tariffs to encourage American industry, according to the White House’s presidential website.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Leslie Adler)