@JLeslie President McKinley died in 1901, so he probably never stepped foot in Alaska, as it was a Russian territory at the time he died.
Here’s a deep dive into the naming of the mountain, from Wikipedia. Long story short, it was Denali for centuries, and named after Presidential candidate McKinley by a gold prospector to show support for McKinley’s candidacy:
The Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for ‘high’ or ‘tall’.[23] During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora (Russian: Большая Гора; bolshaya ‘big’; gora ‘mountain’), which is the Russian translation of Denali.[24] It was briefly called Densmore’s Mountain in the late 1880s and early 1890s[25] after Frank Densmore, a gold prospector who was the first non-native Alaskan to reach the base of the mountain.[26]
In 1896, a gold prospector named it McKinley as political support for then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who became president the following year. The United States formally recognized the name Mount McKinley after President Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act of February 26, 1917.[27] In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson declared the north and south peaks of the mountain the “Churchill Peaks”, in honor of British statesman Winston Churchill.[28] The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which was how it is called locally.[7][29] However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley’s home town of Canton.[30]
On August 30, 2015, just ahead of a presidential visit to Alaska, the Barack Obama administration announced the name Denali would be restored in line with the Alaska Geographic Board’s designation.[10][31] U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell issued the order changing the name to Denali on August 28, 2015, effective immediately.[9] Jewell said the change had been “a long time coming”.[32] The renaming of the mountain received praise from Alaska’s senior U.S. senator, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK),[33] who had previously introduced legislation to accomplish the name change,[34] but it drew criticism from several politicians from President McKinley’s home state of Ohio, such as Governor John Kasich, U.S. Senator Rob Portman, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, and Representative Bob Gibbs, who described Obama’s action as “constitutional overreach” because he said an act of Congress was required to rename the mountain.[35][36][37] The Alaska Dispatch News reported that the Secretary of the Interior has authority under federal law to change geographic names when the Board of Geographic Names does not act on a naming request within a “reasonable” period of time. Jewell told the Alaska Dispatch News that “I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time.”[38]
In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump stated that he planned to revert the mountain’s official name back to Mount McKinley during his second term, in honor of President William McKinley. Trump had previously proposed changing the name in 2017, drawing opposition from Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy.[39] His 2024 proposal was strongly opposed by U.S. Senators from Alaska Lisa Murkowski® and Dan Sullivan®, along with Alaska State Senator Scott Kawasaki (D).[40][41][42] On January 20, 2025, shortly after his second inauguration, Trump signed an executive order requiring the Secretary of the Interior to revert the Obama era name change within 30 days of signing (i.e: renaming Denali back to Mount McKinley in official maps and communications from the American federal government). The executive order does not change the name of Denali National Park, and international entities are not obliged to follow the federal government’s name change.[further explanation needed][11][43][44]
Indigenous names for Denali can be found in seven different Alaskan languages. The names fall into two categories. To the south of the Alaska Range in the Dena’ina and Ahtna languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as ‘big mountain’. To the north of the Alaska Range in the Lower Tanana, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Holikachuk, and Deg Xinag languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as ‘the high one’,[45] ‘the tall one’ (Koyukon, Lower and Middle Tanana, Upper Kuskokwim, Deg Xinag, and Holikachuk).[46]
Asked about the importance of the mountain and its name, Will Mayo, former president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, an organization that represents 42 Athabaskan tribes in the Alaskan interior, said: “It’s not one homogeneous belief structure around the mountain, but we all agree that we’re all deeply gratified by the acknowledgment of the importance of Denali to Alaska’s people.”
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Composing members:
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