7 Fascinating Facts You Probably Didn't Know About William McKinley

While some U.S. presidents are immortalized on currency, in movies, or through sketches, others fade into obscurity, only to have their names remembered on middle schools and parks—or even removed from prominent mountains. Let's explore a few intriguing facts about the 25th president of the United States, William McKinley, who would have turned 175 years old today.

1. HE HELPED KEEP A GROUP OF COAL MINERS OUT OF JAIL.

Born in 1843 in Niles, Ohio, McKinley attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, though he never graduated from either institution. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Union Army, quickly advancing to the rank of second lieutenant and eventually earning a brevet commission to major. Afterward, he briefly studied law at New York's Albany College before passing the bar in Ohio in March 1867.

Nine years later, McKinley represented a group of striking coal miners who were accused of inciting a riot at a mine in Tuscarawas Valley, after clashing with the Ohio militia sent by Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. All but one of the miners were acquitted, and McKinley declined any payment for his legal services.

2. AS PRESIDENT, HE REMOVED SPAIN FROM FOUR TERRITORIES.

Despite McKinley’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, allegedly remarking that McKinley had 'no more backbone than a chocolate éclair' during the tense situation with Spain, the two nations eventually severed diplomatic ties. The United States sided with Cuba in its struggle against Spain.

After the mysterious explosion and sinking of the American battleship Maine off the coast of Havana in February 1898, killing 266 sailors, McKinley demanded Spain grant Cuba its independence. On April 25, 1898, Congress authorized a declaration of war (dating it back to April 21). In the subsequent Spanish-American War, lasting just about 100 days, the U.S. destroyed the Spanish fleet near Cuba’s Santiago, captured Manila in the Philippines, and annexed Puerto Rico and Guam, putting an end to Spain’s colonial reign.

3. HIS PERSONAL LIFE WAS FILLED WITH HEARTACHE.

McKinley wed Ida Saxton, a cashier at her father’s bank, in 1871. That same year, they had a daughter, Katherine, born on Christmas Day. Another daughter, also named Ida, was born in 1873 but tragically passed away four months later. Katherine succumbed to typhoid fever in 1875, and Ida's health began to deteriorate due to phlebitis and undiagnosed epilepsy. While in the White House, Ida often required sedation to endure public events as First Lady, and McKinley would cover her face with a handkerchief during her epileptic seizures.

4. HE BROUGHT THE REPUBLIC OF HAWAII INTO THE U.S. FOLD.

McKinley shifted the course set by his predecessor, Grover Cleveland, advocating for Hawaii to be incorporated as a U.S. territory. After the Spanish-American War, the strategic value of the islands in the Pacific became undeniable, and McKinley’s annexation resolution was passed by both the House and Senate in 1898. This event ended a long-standing struggle between native Hawaiians and American businessmen over the control of the local government. Queen Lili’uokalani, Hawaii’s last monarch, was overthrown in 1893, and although Benjamin Harrison had submitted a bill for annexation, Grover Cleveland withdrew it when he took office. McKinley reintroduced the bill, but the Hawaiian Patriotic League blocked it until the events of 1898.

5. A SHOT FROM AN ANARCHIST ENDED HIS LIFE JUST MONTHS INTO HIS SECOND TERM.

At a public reception during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., on September 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley twice in the chest while the president was greeting people in a receiving line. As a mob advanced on Czolgosz, McKinley reportedly said, “Don’t let them hurt him.” Later, in the Exposition’s Emergency Hospital, McKinley commented about his assailant, “It must have been some poor misguided fellow” and “He didn’t know, poor fellow, what he was doing. He couldn’t have known.”

6. AN OB/GYN PERFORMED THE EMERGENCY SURGERY, BUT IT FAILED TO SAVE MCKINLEY'S LIFE.

Matthew Mann, a physician and gynecology professor at the University of Buffalo, was selected by a quickly assembled team of doctors to operate on McKinley. However, they were unable to locate the second bullet inside the President’s body. A newly delivered X-ray machine, sent by Thomas Edison, arrived in Buffalo but was not used, as McKinley's condition seemed to improve. Unfortunately, his health deteriorated as gangrene set in along the bullet’s path. McKinley died on September 14, 1901, eight days after the shooting, just six months into his second term.

7. MOUNT MCKINLEY SHRANK BY OVER 80 FEET IN 2013, AND THEN LOST ITS NAME.

McKinley never visited Alaska and never saw the peak that was named in his honor by prospector William Dickey, a designation formalized by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917. It’s likely a good thing, as the mountain has had a tumultuous few years.

First, the mountain lost height. On September 12, 2013, Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell announced that the height of North America’s tallest peak, Mount McKinley, was now measured at 20,237 feet, 83 feet shorter than previously recorded. The U.S. Geological Survey, along with Alaska’s Statewide Digital Mapping Initiative, used new radar technology to adjust the earlier figure of 20,320 feet, which had been recorded in 1952 using photogrammetry.

Eventually, the mountain severed its connection to McKinley. Though the Alaska Board of Geographic Names officially renamed the mountain Denali in 1975, reflecting the name used by the Koyukon Athabaskan people, Ohio lawmakers consistently blocked efforts by the Alaskan state legislature to change the name through the United States Board on Geographic Names. In 1980, Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which renamed the area Denali National Park and Preserve, but the mountain’s name remained unchanged until 2015. In June of that year, Victor Knox, Associate Director for the National Park Service, stated he had “no objection” to a bill introduced by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in January to rename the peak Denali. The change became official in 2015, removing the 25th president’s name from the highest peak in North America.

However, you might want to use a non-permanent marker when updating your atlases—the Ohio delegation, including Speaker John Boehner and Representative Tim Ryan, swiftly denounced the decision and expressed intentions to pursue legal challenges. In late 2017, Donald Trump even considered reversing the change, although the Alaska Senate politely declined his offer.