Alaska News

Murkowski tries to rename Alaska's Mt. McKinley as Denali

Don't call it a comeback. Yet.

Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has introduced a bill that would officially rename Mount McKinley, North America's tallest mountain, as Mount Denali, "The Great One."

It's just the latest attempt in an ages-old battle over whether the mountain should be known in homage to late President William McKinley or by its original Athabascan name, the Associated Press reports.

Ohio, birthplace of the former president, has long contested renaming the mountain.

Few Alaskans refer to the mountain as Mount McKinley. The mountain sits in Denali National Park and Preserve.

"All that would be changing with is that the Alaskan name for the mountain would become the 'technically correct' term for what is an Alaska landmark," she said, according to the AP story. Read more here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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