Point Retreat is a headland with a historic lighthouse on the Mansfield Peninsula at the northern tip of Admiralty Island, between Lynn Canal to the west and Saginaw Channel of Stephens Passage to the east, about 60 miles (97 km) south-southeast of Haines and 20 miles (32 km) north-west of Juneau, Alaska. The point was named in 1794 by Lieutenant Joseph Whidbey during the Vancouver Expedition after he was forced to seek safety from a hostile group of Tlingit. Mansfield Peninsula was named in 1893 for Henry B. Mansfield, who commanded the US Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer Carlile P. Patterson during hydrographic surveys in Southeast Alaska from 1889 to 1891. The bedrock forming Point Retreat represents the Retreat Group of the Gambier Bay Formation in the Alexander terrane. The formation consists of sedimentary and volcanic rocks that developed from the Ordovician to Triassic periods, about 480 million to 200 million years ago, and were regionally metamorphosed to slate, phyllite, greenschist, schist, gneiss, and marble. The Retreat Group is inferred to be Devonian in age, about 420 million to 360 million years ago, based on correlation with fossils found in marble in the Gambier Bay Formation.

Mansfield Peninsula is part of the traditional territory of the Tlingit Aak’w Kwáan, also known as the Auke tribe, one of the 13 geographical subdivisions of the Tlingit people in south-east Alaska. The first written report of the Auke tribe was made in 1794, when members of Vancouver’s expedition observed smoke from campfires in Auke Bay. In 1804 Alexander Baranov visited the Auke on his journey to re-establish the Russian settlement at Sitka after it had been destroyed in 1802 by Tlingit warriors led by Skautlelt and Kotleian of the Kéex’ Kwáan. In 1806, in defense of their territory and probably as a result of kinship and alliances with Angoon clans, the Auke participated in planning another attack on the Russian colony at Sitka, but it was never carried out. In 1835 the Russian Orthodox priest Ivan P. Veniaminov wrote about the Tlingit tribes and specifically mentioned the Auke. At the time of the Alaska Purchase in 1867, the Auke tribe retained exclusive use and occupancy of their territory. Russian, American and English ships traveled regularly through the Auke region on trading expeditions, but the Auke maintained control until the discovery of gold in 1880 brought large numbers of miners and extensive development. In 1880 a census conducted by Ivan Petrof recorded 640 Auke people living in five villages: two on the northern part of Admiralty Island, one on Douglas Island and two on the mainland at present-day Auke Bay and Juneau.

A light station is located at Point Retreat to mark an important intersection for vessels traveling through the Inside Passage. In 1901 a lighthouse reserve of 1,505 acres (609 ha) was set aside by an executive order from President William McKinley. The first Point Retreat Lighthouse was a hexagonal wooden tower, only 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, with a hexagonal lantern room that was first lit in 1904. In 1917 the lighthouse was removed and downgraded to a minor light until 1924, when a new combination lighthouse and fog signal was built. The lantern was removed in the 1950s and a solar-powered lens was installed on a post attached to the tower. In 1973 the light was again unmanned and downgraded. In 1997 the Alaska Lighthouse Association, a non-profit organization, leased the buildings from the US Coast Guard and became the station owners in 2002. The station includes a lighthouse, oil house, keeper’s residence, boathouse, dock, water tank, fuel-storage platform, helicopter platform and a tramway. In 2002 all the structures at Point Retreat were repainted, and Seidelhuber Iron and Bronze Works of Seattle was contracted to build a steel replica of the lantern room using architectural drawings found in the National Archives. The new lantern was installed atop the lighthouse in 2004 to mark the station’s centennial. Read more here and here. Explore more of Point Retreat and Admiralty Island here: