It’s a done deal and one that Alaska likes.
No disrespect intended toward Ohio, but this is Alaska, not Ohio.
President Donald Trump asked Alaska’s senators whether an Obama-era decision affecting Alaska and Ohio — the renaming of Alaska’s tallest peak — should stand.
By all means, the duo responded.
Alaska overwhelmingly favored the peak being called Denali, a name given to it years ago by Alaska’s Athabascans.
It had more recently acquired the name Mount McKinley, after President William McKinley, who was born in Ohio. McKinley wasn’t even president when the mountain peak acquired his name; he was a political candidate.
The McKinley name came about because a gold prospector got into an argument with two other prospectors and retaliated by naming the mountain after the champion of the gold standard — McKinley.
The name stuck until the 1970s when Alaska attempted to convince the federal government to make the peak’s official name Denali. It finally happened during the Obama administration.
And it’s what Alaskans prefer. For Trump, there’s no sense in revisiting that deal. It’s done.
— Ketchikan Daily News, Oct. 26, 2017
