A mountain by any other name still stands tall

Honorary nomenclature can be sticky, as the current controversy over Tillman Halls at Winthrop and Clemson universities so aptly demonstrates. An ill-considered name for a building, a bridge, a road or whatever can be an embarrassment as new information comes to light or public attitudes change.

The uproar over these two buildings is warranted, especially in the case of Winthrop, where what had been known as Main Building was renamed Tillman Hall in 1962 as a retort to the civil rights movement. Those who arranged the new monicker were well aware that, in addition to being elected the state’s governor and senator, “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman was a raving racist and white supremacist who boasted about having killed black people.

But problems with names afflict not only man-made objects but also natural ones. President Barack Obama, for example, is getting some blowback this week over his decision to change the name of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley to Denali, a native Alaskan name referring to the mountain’s great height.

In this case, it’s not a matter of embarrassing new facts about McKinley that prompted the change. He still ranks as one of several mediocre presidents born in Ohio.

Obama, as he is empowered to do as president, is merely bowing to the wishes of Alaskans, who happen to actually live in the state where the mountain is located. They have always called it Denali and have officially named it that.

They also have pleaded with the federal government to join them and change the name to Denali. But Ohio lawmakers have stood strong for their native son, and this week House Speaker John Boehner and other Ohio colleagues have sharply criticized Obama because ... well, because he’s Obama.

But really, the only leg McKinley supporters have to stand on is tradition, and it’s flimsy tradition at that. History has it that a New Hampshire prospector, having tromped up to Alaska during the gold rush of 1896, stumbled on the mountain and promptly dubbed it Mt. McKinley after the new Republican presidential nominee, who happened to be a champion of the gold standard.

McKinley had never set foot in Alaska. And while he was a Civil War hero of sorts, he was not a mountain climber, an explorer or even a geologist.

It’s easy to understand why Alaskans would resent a bunch of Ohioans telling them what to call their mountain. The name Denali, with a picture of a bear or a big salmon, will look much cooler on souvenir baseball caps and coffee thermoses than McKinley.

Descriptive names such as Denali generally seem much safer and more likely to withstand the test of time than people’s names. The name Grand Teton for Wyoming’s second-highest peak (Denali is highest in the nation) has stuck despite earlier attempts to name it Mt. Hayden after someone named Hayden.

At any rate, the name was embraced by the U.S. National Park Service, which officially established Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park in 1929. But even when geographical sites or other objects are not named after specific people, the names can be controversial.

Consider the hundreds of places whose names contain the word “squaw.” Native Americans always have hated the use of that word.

But late-arriving Americans historically ignored those objections and named hundreds of places after squaws. California’s Squaw Valley, for example, is one of the largest ski resorts in the country and site of the 1960 Winter Olympics.

Owners of the resort have resisted changing the name. But at least nine states have systematically renamed lakes, valleys, mountains and other natural sites that contained the word squaw because Indians find it derogatory.

The same thing no doubt has occurred with other names that contain racial or ethnic epithets, and that is a commendable response. It suggests that reasonable people can band together to do something about names that others find offensive, despite longstanding tradition.

It suggests that renaming those Tillman Halls shouldn’t really be such a tortuous decision after all.

This story was originally published September 6, 2015 at 10:04 PM with the headline "A mountain by any other name still stands tall."