Originally a marsh-filled peninsula at the mouth of the River Rouge, it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years.

The beginning of interest in developing the land came when Samuel Zug, one of the founders of the Republican Party and a staunch abolitionist, came to Detroit from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in 1836 to make his fortune in the furniture industry with the money he earned as a bookkeeper.

Envisioning a luxurious estate on the Detroit River, Zug bought 325 acres (1.32 km2) of marshy land below Fort Wayne from the town of Delray in 1876.

At this time the island's two furnaces were reportedly the largest of their kind in the world, producing pig iron for foundry companies.

During the industry's peak, thousands of workers were employed on the island with a large percentage of the downriver community supported by the local steel producer.

[6][needs update] Despite the island's extremely developed industrial landscape, areas along the south and west shores are left undeveloped to provide habitat for wildlife.

Foxes and once-endangered peregrine falcons, which frequent large outdoor structures such as the gantry cranes at the ore docks, thrive on the island and offshore.

At the bottom of the Detroit River is a man-made bed of coal cinders which serves as a rare spawning site for lake sturgeon, a threatened species.

According to an article in the January 20, 2010, edition of the Detroit Free Press, the neighborhoods around the area compose six of the ten most polluted zip codes in Michigan.

In the article, residents cite air quality samples containing lead and high levels of methyl ethyl ketone, large numbers of cancer and asthma cases, and foul smells with "sparkly" dust that must be removed with toilet cleaner.

[11] In April 2013, a Canadian scientist used sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to accurately identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it.

[16] In April 2024, an alleged former worker at Zug Island claimed in an r/IAmA thread that the plant's byproducts flare stacks were the origins of the hum.

[19] The SS Edmund Fitzgerald of Great Lakes shipwreck fame was laden with taconite destined for Zug Island on her fateful voyage in 1975.