President-elect Trump this week pledged to reverse former President Obama’s 2015 decision to change the name of North America’s highest mountain to the Koyukon Athabascan name “Denali,” meaning “High” or “Great.” means.
Speaking to conservatives at a conference in Phoenix, Trump made the pledge, noting that President William McKinley was also a Republican who believed in tariffs. He first promised to reverse Obama’s action in August 2015 and mentioned this an ‘insult to Ohio’, where McKinley was born and raised.
During his remarks in Phoenix, he also vowed to reverse Democrats’ rebranding of Southern military bases named after Confederates — such as Fort Liberty in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which was previously named after Gen. Braxton Bragg.
The 20,000-foot mountain was first named Mount McKinley in 1896 by prospector William Dickey after he learned the Ohioan had won the GOP presidential nomination — and in a swipe at silver seekers, he met who favored Democrat William Jennings Bryan and his plan for a silver medal. standard for the dollar.
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William McKinley of Ohio (1843-1901) was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897 until his assassination in September 1901. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Six months into his second term, McKinley was visiting Buffalo, New York, when anarchist worker Leon Czolgosz murdered him in an instant. Czolgosz believed that the root of economic inequality lay with the government and that it was reportedly inspired by the assassination of Italian King Umberto I in 1900.
However, many Alaskans do seemed to prefer the historical name Denali:
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski told KTUU that Trump’s plan to “Mt. McKinley” is a “terrible idea.”
“We’ve already gone through this with President Trump, right at the beginning of his first term,” she said Monday.
Murkowski said both she and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, — who is originally from McKinley’s Ohio — support the Denali name.
“(Denali) is a name that has been around for thousands of years…The highest mountain in North America – shouldn’t it have a name like ‘The Great One’?” Murkowski added.
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Denali, near Talkeetna, Alaska (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
In 2015, Sullivan told the Anchorage Daily News that “Denali belongs to Alaska and its citizens” and that naming rights belong to Alaskan Natives.
In one statement to KTUU this week, Sullivan said many Alaskans prefer the “name that the very tough, very strong, very patriotic Athabascan people gave” as a highlight.
Meanwhile, then-Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, spent decades in Congress trying to prevent any name change from McKinley to Denali — as the president of the same name came from his district of Canton.
Regula, who died in 2017, blasted Obama for the name change, saying he “thinks he’s a dictator.”
Regula appeared to cite his own work proposing procedural roadblocks and language added to domestic bills, saying Obama could not change such a law “with the stroke of his pen.”
“You want to change the Ohio River?” he joked.
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Senator Lisa Murkowski speaks during a press conference. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
However, some Ohio officials have also shown respect for the will of Alaskans.
Current Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted told the Dayton daily news in 2015 that if Denali is what Alaskans want, he in turn understood because he wouldn’t want Alaskans dictating name changes in Ohio.
“So I guess we shouldn’t tell people in Alaska should do in their own state. But I’m a big fan of Canton and McKinley and I’m glad he’s being talked about more,” he said at the time.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is originally from Pennsylvania and graduated from Temple University with a BA in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to [email protected].