In the morning of June 13, 1792, the two ships under Galiano sailed into Boundary Bay and verified Point Roberts was not an island, which was thus renamed Punta Cepeda.

[10] Point Roberts assumed its present political status in 1846, when the Oregon Treaty extended the 49th parallel as the boundary between U.S. and British territory from the Rocky Mountains to Georgia Strait.

Senator Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana urged U.S. President James K. Polk to annex the entire Oregon Country up to latitude 54°40′N, as the Democrats had been elected on the slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight".

While his government asserted that the title of the United States of America to the entire territory was unquestionable even though there was only one U.S. resident (a former Briton) north of the Columbia basin, Polk and Secretary of State James Buchanan made an offer of a boundary at 49 degrees with the line straight across Vancouver Island, with no commercial privilege to be granted to the British south of the line, with the exception of free ports on Vancouver Island.

The British emissary, Richard Pakenham, had been advised that the last concession he could expect of the United States was to bend the boundary at the 49th parallel around the southern end of Vancouver Island.

Lord Aberdeen, British Foreign Secretary, proposed a treaty making the 49th parallel the boundary to the sea, giving the UK the whole of Vancouver Island.

Later, as the Boundary Commission surveyed the line, the British government realized the peninsula of Point Roberts would be an isolated part of the United States.

[11] During the 1858 Fraser gold rush, prospectors from Victoria, BC who were attempting to avoid tax collection briefly settled Point Roberts.

A regional development plan for the Lower Mainland presented in 1952 suggested turning Point Roberts into an international park or leasing it for 99 or 999 years.

[17][18] In 2020, a study found that Point Roberts had lost 80 percent of its business and hundreds of seasonal residents as a result of the pandemic and border shutdown.

[20] The Canadian government waived its mandatory COVID testing requirements for Point Roberts residents in February 2021, following negotiations with Washington state.

[22] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Point Roberts was acclaimed as the "safest place" for avoiding coronavirus due to its isolation from the mainland United States and Canada and very low case numbers.

[25] The City of Delta installed a chain-link fence at the end of English Bluff Road in 2025 to deter accidental crossings after an elderly man walked into Point Roberts.

Beneath Point Roberts, the bedrock of the Chuckanut Formation was deposited as an alluvial plain containing layers of sediments consisting of silt, sand, gravel and peat.

During the last 60 million years the sediments were compacted and folded by mountain building forces from continental drift to form strata of siltstone, sandstone, conglomerate and coal.

At the peak of the most recent glaciation, the main ice sheet was in excess of 7,000 feet (2,100 m) thick as it moved southward between Vancouver Island and the Canadian Coast Range and down the Strait of Georgia.

A smaller lobe of the continental glacier in excess of 5,000 feet (1,500 m) traveled down the Fraser River flood plains merging with the main ice sheet over the greater Vancouver area and Whatcom and Skagit Counties.

(Armstrong, et al., 1965) Point Roberts, Tsawwassen, and part of British Columbia extending past English Bluff comprised an island at the close of the Vashon Glaciation, approximately 11,000 years ago.

The uppermost layer of glacial sediments consists of recessional sand, silt, and gravel deposited as the Strait of Georgia ice lobe receded.

Since the recession of the glaciers, the Fraser River has deposited deltaic sediments on the north and easterly side of the Point Roberts-Tsawwassen Island, connecting it to the Greater Vancouver mainland (approximately 2,500 years ago, Murray 2008).

[30] As of the 2010 United States Census,[2] there were 1,314 people, 678 households, and 372 families residing in the Point Roberts ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Area).

[36] Because entry to Point Roberts from the rest of the U.S. requires two international border crossings, it has sometimes been described as "the best gated community in the U.S."[15] Residents enjoy a low crime rate, with a high local security presence.

[3] While there is one doctor's clinic, there is no hospital, dentist, pharmacist or veterinarian, and because American health insurers will not pay for treatment from Canadian providers, Point Roberts residents usually seek medical care in Bellingham, Washington, although Vancouver is closer.

In 1988, Point Roberts service was severed from BC Tel, and the protection of the 604-945 prefix ended, at the expense of losing the ability to make local calls to any other exchange in either country.

[15] Although Point Roberts is nominally part of the Seattle television market, the only over-the-air stations available in the town come from the Metro Vancouver region and Bellingham, Washington.