As every American schoolchild knows, the highest mountain in North America is Alaska's Mount McKinley (elevation: 20,320 ft., a mere 8,708 ft. lower than the Himalayas' Mount Everest). But centuries before paleface cartographers gave the peak that name, Alaskan Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos called it by another: Denali, or "the Great One" in the Athabascan Indian dialect. Now native Alaskans are lobbying hard to restore the original Indian name. The state legislature has adopted a resolution to rechristen the mountain Denali, and both Governor Jay Hammond and Senator Mike Gravel are campaigning to persuade the U.S. Interior Department to make the change official.
The mountain's name was a fluke. As local historians tell it, in 1896 W.A. Dickey, an ornery gold prospector and one of the first U.S. explorers in the area, fell into an argument with two supporters of William Jennings Bryan and his free-silver movement. The prospector retaliated by naming the mountain after the champion of the gold standard, then Presidential Candidate William McKinley. The name stuck and gradually worked its way into maps and books. Now there is virtually no resistance in the state to the proposed name change. Few Alaskans feel that the long-dead President deserves the honor. Says Anchorage Daily News Publisher Kay Fanning: "McKinley never got near it."