Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali

Background

For the appropriate background, Wikipedia gives an extensive one to provide just that. It is published here for research purposes, and the documents can be seen below it.

The name of the highest mountain in North America became a subject of dispute in 1975, when the Alaska Legislature asked the U.S. federal government to officially change its name from “Mount McKinley” to “Denali”. The mountain had been unofficially named Mount McKinley in 1896 by a gold prospector, and officially by the federal government of the United States in 1917 to commemorate William McKinley, who was President of the United States from 1897 until his assassination in 1901.

The name “Denali” is based on the Koyukon name of the mountain, Deenaalee (“the high one”). The Koyukon are a people of Alaskan Athabaskans settling in the area north of the mountain.

Alaska in 1975 requested that the mountain be officially recognized as Denali, as it was still the common name used in the state. Attempts by the Alaskan state government to have Mount McKinley’s name changed by the federal government were blocked by members of the congressional delegation from Ohio, the home state of the mountain’s presidential namesake. In August 2015, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the name would officially be changed in all federal documents. While on an Alaskan visit in the first week of September 2015, President Barack Obama announced the renaming of the mountain.

In April of 2016, The Black Vault filed a FOIA request to the USGS for documents relating to the change. As a result, hundreds upon hundreds of pages were received, from emails to the minutes of the meetings took place.

I combined the records below for downloading. I am sorry they are not more organized than this, but you are able to search within the document. There are also .pdf bookmarks differentiating the releases that were combined.

For reference, the below records were received under FOIA Case USGS 2016-00136.

Document Archive

Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali – Release #1 [463 Pages, 37MB]

Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali – Release #2 [289 Pages, 12MB]

Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali – Release #3-5 [442 Pages, 21.6MB]

Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali – Release #6 [200 Pages, 10.9MB]

Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali – Release #7 [137  Pages, 9MB]

Mount McKinley Renaming to Denali – Release #8 [ZIP File – 3,064 Pages, 243MB] – Note: A few .pdf files in this release were password protected to edit for an unknown reason. USGS had no record of the password, and could not unlock them. They are still viewable, just not editable.

 

 

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