The church represents the first Catholic parish in the State of Alaska. The church began when Father John Althoff, a newly ordained priest, accompanied by Charles John Seghers, Bishop of Victoria, Vancouver Island, arrived in Wrangell in the spring of 1879. Althoff, himself a craftsman, enlisted the aid of Wrangell’s Irish Catholics and that year, they built the little church named St. Rose of Lima. In April of 1898, St. Rose of Lima, in disrepair for a number of years, was torn down. In 1908 a new church was built. Through the years the building has been modified, with major changes taking place in 1926.