[2] A Native American name for the island is Ke-Che Mab-Ne-Do, which means "The Great Spirit", and the lake is known as Mac-Kay-See.

In 1897 Reuben Ridgley, a cook and year-round watchman for a lumber camp, proclaimed his son, Stephen, the first person born on the island.

For more than sixty years, through 2013, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay maintained a seasonal retreat house on Chambers Island, called the Holy Name Retreat House, on a 70-acre former resort property located on the isthmus between Green Bay and Mackaysee Lake on the east shore of the island.

[8] The retreat house typically attracted thousands of people per year to reflect for several days or a week between the months of May and September.

[13] In the southeast, Chambers Island narrows to a spit, called Hanover Shoal, which extends toward the shoreline of the Door Peninsula, from which it is approximately 5-mile (8.0 km) distant.

[15] Chambers Island's exterior shoreline is mostly privately owned with the exception of the Gibraltar town park where the lighthouse is located.

[17][18] On the southeast side of the island, the right-of-way of Base Line Road reaches the Green Bay shoreline.

Three areas of interior shoreline along the north, west, and south of Mackaysee Lake are part of the Chambers Island Nature Preserve[23] owned by the Door County Land Trust and are also enrolled in the Wisconsin Managed Forest program allowing public access.

[22][24] 888.836 acres (35.8% of the total land area) on the island was enrolled for public access under the Wisconsin Managed Forest Program as of 2021.

The remaining portion of the island is privately owned by a number of different persons and corporations and is closed to trespassers.

[25] It was originally constructed as part of an attempt in the 1920s to turn much of the island into a golf course and upscale residential area.

In 2012 the company installed a wind turbine to augment the solar panels that charge the batteries that power the site.