The Alaska-Ohio Name Game, Round 30
Mount McKinley is so large that Athabascan people speaking different languages had different names for it. The Koyukon, on the north and west, called it Deenaalee, while the Dena'ina and Ahtna on the far side called it Dengadh. In 1839 the name was recorded on a Russian map as Tenada. It often has been translated as "the great one," but a closer translation is the more generic "the high one." The Athabascans never named mountains after people, nor did the Denali area get much use, since fish and game are relatively sparse and the weather extreme, but they did regard high places as spiritually important.
The name McKinley became associated with the mountain in the haphazard way common of the Alaska gold-rush period. A businessman and Princeton graduate named William Dickey was prospecting in the area in 1896, constantly arguing with his traveling companions about the big political issue of the day, the gold monetary standard supported by the Republicans and opposed by the Democrats. The Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, declared at his nomination convention that year, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." It was the gold standard that caused a deflationary economic disaster in those years, which was relieved only by the 1898 Klondike gold rush, which also led to Alaska's settlement. Anyway, when Dickey came out of the Bush, he published a piece about his travels in the New York Sun in which he reported his "discovery" and his name for North America's highest mountain -- in honor of William McKinley, the Republican candidate who won the White House and was then assassinated. Dickey later admitted he chose the name only to spite his former traveling companions.
Alaskans have long believed McKinley is an irrelevant name for the mountain, especially since it already had a name. In 1975, the state of Alaska petitioned the U.S. Geographic Names Board to change the name back to Denali. In 1980, Congress changed the name of the national park to Denali, but a single congressman from Ohio has blocked changing the name of the mountain itself. McKinley was an Ohio governor and congressman before running for president. Rep. Ralph Regula, a Republican who has represented McKinley's former seat since 1972, and who even attended William McKinley Law School, found a clever maneuver to keep the name on the mountain. The names board has a policy of taking up no issue that is also being considered by Congress. In each Congress since 1977, Regula has introduced a single sentence as a budget amendment or as a standalone bill that states that McKinley is the mountain's permanent name. Although the bill never gets so much as a committee hearing, its existence is enough to invoke the board's policy and prevent it from considering the change.
Alaskans call the mountain Denali anyway and haven't given up on changing its official name. Their chief hope is persistence. Regula can't stay in Congress forever.
This is largely based on an article from Alaska Magazine, July 2005, by Peter Porco.
