The Kappel municipality was established in 1850, it was renamed Eisenkappel in 1890, while the iron industries declined. The Eisenkappel citizens had to rely on forestry and summer tourism around several mineral springs, promoted by the opening of the Vellachtalbahn narrow gauge railway line in 1902. Eisenkappel and Vellach finally merged in 1939. In the late days of World War II the remote Peršman farm in Koprein Petzen was a strongpoint of the Slovene Partisans, the only ever-existing Anti-Nazi military resistance of Austria. On 25 April 1945, a Nazi "SS" unit stormed the building killing eleven residents, among them seven children. Seats in the municipal "Gemeinderat" assembly as of March 2019 :  Since March 2009, Eisenkappel-Vellach has been run by a Carinthian Slovene mayor, Franc Jožef Smrtnik. It is currently the only municipality in Carinthia with a mayor of the Slovene minority party Enotna Lista.