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.