The Tlingit people living in the Wrangell area, who were there centuries before Europeans, call themselves the Shtaxʼhéen Ḵwáan after the nearby Stikine River.

Later settlements on the coast included Chʼuxʼáasʼaan "Waterfall Town" (now Mill Creek), Ḵeishangita.aan "Red Alder Head Village" (site of the Wrangell Institute at Shoemaker Bay), Kʼaatsʼḵu Noow "Among the Sharps Fort" (now Anita Bay), An.áan "Village that Rests" (now Anan Bear Viewing Area), and many others.

The stockade, named Redoubt Saint Dionysius (Редутъ Санктъ Дионисіусъ), was founded at the location of present-day Wrangell and stood near the end of the small peninsula that forms the northeastern side of the mouth of the harbor.

The HBC abandoned the fort in 1849 after the area's stocks of sea otter and beaver were depleted, thus ending the fur trade.

The following morning, Scutd-doo, who was the father of the deceased, entered the fort and shot the post trader's partner Leon Smith fourteen times.

The US army made an ultimatum demanding Sccutd-doo's surrender, and following bombardment of the Stikine Indian village, the villagers handed Scutd-doo over to the military in the fort, where he was court-martialed and publicly hanged before the garrison and assembled natives on December 29,[6] stating before he was hanged that he had acted in revenge against the occupants of the fort for the killing of Lowan and not against Smith in particular.

Reverend S. Hall Young, a colleague of Sheldon Jackson, was assigned to the Wrangell mission and arrived on July 10, 1878.

Long Feather), and Kaadaashaan ("Kadachan"), as well Sitka Charley, as a young man who was their interpreter in Chinook Jargon and English.

Having been Tlingit territory and then under the jurisdiction of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States, Wrangell has the unique status as the only Alaskan city to have been governed under four "flags".

One of the last two major sawmills in Southeast Alaska is operated by the Silver Bay Logging Company just south of the city proper.

Today the Wrangell Cooperative Association, a Tlingit IRA council and the federally recognized tribe for the area, maintains Shakes Island and the House, as well as Totem Park near the city center.

It consists of a master carver, Wayne Price, and six assistants, four of them women, accepted after intensive training in the use of the traditional adze tool.

The southernmost terminus of the vast Juneau Icefield is just north of the Stikine with several glaciers flowing down to the river and saltwater at LeConte Bay.

Whales live seasonally in the waters of the Alexander Archipelago[25] and visit Wrangell searching for herring and salmon creating good photo opportunities.

The former vast Alaska Pulp Corporation logging operations at Wrangell closed down in the mid-1990s unable to meet water quality standards though cutting hundreds of millions of board feet of lumber annually.

Wrangell has three marinas on the northwest side of the island and the southernmost; Shoemaker Bay, is undergoing renewal construction in September 2018.

In order to keep a small-town rural aesthetic, the city turned down the prospect of building a state prison and home-porting a naval vessel.

The Stikine Inn was remodeled to fine shape, and an inter-island ferry business was established with service to Prince of Wales Island.

Sunrise Aviation, an air work and tourism float plane service, continues to provide service anywhere in the region, though helicopter journeys to high mountain glaciers need to be scheduled from Ketchikan to the south 100 miles (Ketchikan is from the Tlingit word Kootchikan meaning place of stinky fish).

Baron Von Wrangell sent Lieutenant Dionysius Zarembo to establish a trading post on Stikine Strait in 1833 to beat the Brits.

Today nearby Zarembo Island has an elk and moose population visited by hunting guides and parties from Wrangell.

Wrangell's seafood processing plant, though small and consuming much of the city's water supply seasonally, employs workers from Mexico, Russia, and Somalia.

Wrangell has several churches and bars and a pizza store though no citywide free wireless internet for tourists or business travelers yet.

It has guided kayak tours in summer and some of the most accessible coastal forest wilderness hiking, camping and climbing of S.E.

In addition to the 1,162 residents, the census also reported a separate 163 individuals living in the unincorporated areas surrounding Wrangell.

Visiting specialists in internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, optometry, pediatrics, ophthalmology, podiatry, orthopedics, rheumatology, dietetics and dermatology complement local services.

In 1943 the federal Treasury Section of Fine Arts commissioned artist Austin Mecklem and his wife, Marianne Greer Appel, to paint a mural, Old Town in Alaska, intended for the Wrangell post office.

The work was completed at their studio in New York state, transported via railway on October 19, 1943, arrived in Wrangell in December 1943 and installed in early 1944.

[40] Wrangell is also a stop on the summer Monday, Friday, Saturday runs of the Inter-Island Ferry Authority's M/V Stikine.

[41] There are two daily scheduled Boeing 737-700/800 flights; passenger jet service is operated by Alaska Airlines at the Wrangell Airport.