Long before European settlers or Mormon colonists arrived, the Odawa people called this island home for at least 300 years. The Ojibwe named it for the beavers that thrived here. On the island's northwestern side, a 397-foot-diameter stone circle consisting of approximately 39 stones and boulders sits aligned with the midsummer solstice, its center stone positioned beneath the North Star. Discovered in 1985 by Dr. Terri Bussey of the Grand Rapids Inter-Tribal Council, the Beaver Island Sun Circle is estimated to be roughly 1,000 years old, possibly constructed by the Mississippian people and later used by the Odawa as a solar and lunar calendar. Some of the stones bear what appear to be hand-carved symbols: thunderbirds, geometric shapes, and human figures. A second stone circle, the Fairy Stone Circle, was found on the island's northeastern side in 2014. Whether these formations are sacred astronomical instruments or geological coincidence remains debated, but the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians have protected the main site since 1988.

After the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, James Strang challenged Brigham Young for leadership of the Mormon movement, claiming a letter from Smith designated him as successor. When mainstream Mormons headed west, Strang led his splinter group, the Strangites, to Beaver Island in 1848. What followed was unlike anything else in American history. Strang crowned himself king, complete with a metal ring studded with glass stars, a red robe, and a wooden scepter. He was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1853 and again in 1855, founded the first newspaper in northern Michigan, and created an entirely new county with Beaver Island as its seat. He also declared polygamy divinely sanctioned and eventually took five wives. Irish Catholic fishermen already living on the island were forced out of St. James and into a settlement at Cable Bay. Tensions boiled over repeatedly. In the "Battle of Whiskey Point," Strang fired a cannon at a private army of Irish-American fishermen attempting to retake the island. The kingdom finally collapsed when Strang, after ordering women to wear bloomers and having the husbands of two who refused publicly flogged, was assassinated on the St. James dock. His killers were fined $1.25 each and released to a cheering crowd.

Irish Catholic fishermen from County Donegal, Gull Island, and Mackinac Island swiftly filled the vacuum the Strangites left behind. Their community, nourished by continued immigration from the Gaeltacht, developed a distinct identity that the island's isolation preserved. Catholic sermons and daily conversations were conducted in Ulster Irish for decades. By the mid-1880s, Beaver Island had become the largest supplier of freshwater fish consumed in the United States. The 24-room King Strang Hotel went up in 1901, built by Captain Manus Bonner and later renamed in wry tribute to the island's strangest chapter. Among the island's most beloved residents was Feodor Protar, a follower of Leo Tolstoy's religious movement who arrived in 1893 and spent the rest of his life as a recluse doctor and friend to all until his death in 1925. In 1938, folklorist Alan Lomax recorded resident John W. Green singing traditional songs, recordings now preserved at the Library of Congress. Overfishing and the devastating arrival of the invasive lamprey eel in the 1940s and 1950s gutted the fishing industry and emptied the island, but tourism revived it beginning in the 1970s.

Today Beaver Island is home to roughly 616 year-round residents spread across two townships. The island stretches roughly 13 miles long and 6 miles wide, mostly flat and sandy with dense forest covering much of the interior. In April 2024, the Beaver Island State Wildlife Research Area was designated an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, protecting over 9,000 acres from light pollution. On clear nights, constellations, meteor showers, and the Northern Lights reveal themselves with startling clarity. Two airports serve the island: Welke Airport (6Y8) near St. James and the public Beaver Island Airport (KSJX) on the western shore. The Beaver Island Boat Company runs seasonal ferry service from Charlevoix, a two-hour crossing on Lake Michigan. Two historic lighthouses mark the approaches: the Beaver Island Harbor Light, erected in 1870 and still operational, and the Beaver Island Head Lighthouse from 1851, now decommissioned and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Somewhere in the waters nearby, the wreck of La Salle's 1679 flagship Le Griffon may still rest, considered the "Holy Grail" among Great Lakes shipwreck hunters.

Beaver Island resists simple description. It is an archipelago of fourteen named islands. It is the place where Baroque orchestral music fills a remote Great Lakes island each summer, where an Irish Feile celebrates the Donegal heritage that reshaped the community, and where a bike festival sends riders along 42 miles of island roads past scattered historical monuments. The Mormon Print Shop, the only Strangite-era building still standing, now serves as a museum of local history. Central Michigan University operates a biological research station on the island. The Strangite church itself persists, though no longer on Beaver Island, with a maximum of 300 adherents worldwide. Persistent rumors speak of King Strang's treasure buried in a chest at the bottom of Fox Lake. No one has found it. The island's layers of history, from ancient stone circles to a Mormon monarchy to an Irish-speaking fishing community to a dark sky sanctuary, make it one of the most improbable places in America.