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Chris J LeBlanc Photography - Lighthouses
Providing details and historical information of lighthouse pictures taken during my travels
Point Retreat Lighthouse
Admiralty Island, Alaska
© 2012 - Chris J LeBlanc Photographer
Location: Located on the northern tip of Admiralty Island, twenty-one miles northwest of Juneau.
Latitude: N 58.41151
Longitude: W 134.9551
Year Constructed: 1923 (station established 1904). Active
Tower Height: 25 feet Focal Plane: 63 feet
Square cylindrical reinforced concrete tower with lantern and gallery, mounted on the roof of a square concrete fog signal building. Lighthouse is white concrete; lantern painted black.
Historical Information:
- Location: ADMIRALTY ISLAND/LYNN CANAL
- Station Established: 1904
- Year Current Tower(s) First Lit: 1923
- Operational? YES
- Automated? YES 1973
- Foundation Materials: CONCRETE
- Construction Materials: CONCRETE
- Tower Shape: SQUARE ON FOG SIGNAL BUILDING
- Markings/Pattern: WHITE ART DECO W/LANTERN
- Original Lens: FIRST ORDER BIVALVE, FRESNEL 1904
- Point Retreat was construction in 1904 and was first lit on September 15th and displayed a fixed white light.
- The light was unmanned before 1917.
- Light was reestablished and upgraded in 1924 with construction of a new light and fog signal building.
- The lantern was removed in the 1950s and a solar powered 300 mm lens was installed on a post attached to the tower.
- In 1966 the second Keeper's quarters were demolished to make way for a helipad.
- In 1973 the light was again unmanned and downgraded to a minor light again.
- The lighthouse was transferred to the Alaska Lighthouse Association in 1998. Rehabilitation of the light has been funded in part by Save Americas Treasures grants that are administered by the National Park Service. In 2002 all the building were repainted.
- In 2003 the light was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Point Retreat Lighthouse is situated at the northern tip of ninety-mile-long Admiralty Island, which is bordered by Stephens Passage on the east and Chatham Strait on the west.
The first Point Retreat Lighthouse was a six-foot-tall hexagonal wooden tower, topped by a hexagonal lantern room was lit on September 15, 1904. Two one-and-one-half-story frame dwellings were constructed fifty feet south of the light, but one of them apparently burned down not long after it was completed. The station’s boat, stored in a rectangular boathouse just east of the dwellings, allowed the keepers to make an occasional trip to Juneau.
A new combination lighthouse and fog signal was built in 1923-24. A one-story, rectangular (30’ x 40’) building housed the fog signal equipment, and from the center of this cement structure a spiral staircase led up to a square tower, which was topped by a circular lantern room.
As the station moved towards automation, one of the two keeper’s dwellings was torn down in 1966 to make room for a helicopter landing pad. Then, in 1973, the station was downgraded to a minor light, and the remaining personnel were removed.
