Point Lookout (location)

Point Lookout is a swampland that was once Maryland's Point Lookout State Park before the Great War.

Pre-War
Long before the Great War, the region of Point Lookout was discovered by English explorer John Smith in 1612. Over two decades later, in 1634, Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore sent the first colonists to Maryland aboard two ships, the Ark and the Dove. The settlers landed in Point Lookout and constructed the Ark & Dove Cathedral, naming it after the vessels that brought them to the New World. Point Lookout continued as a successful settlement.

During the American Civil War, the region served as a Union-controlled camp for Confederate prisoners of war.

Point Lookout remained very rural and isolated until the mid-21st century, when the US Government declared the region a national park. In 2058, despite local criticism and resistance, the Isla Negra real estate company purchased land and began developing new homes and attractions, after a deal with Constance Blackhall, a member of a wealthy family that had lived in the area for several centuries, owning a Victorian clapboard-style mansion. The small seaside town was developed into a tourist attraction, particularly with the boardwalk that pays homage to the original English settlers called "Pilgrim's Landing". The Calvert family was highly influential within the US government, and according to Desmond Lockheart, owned half of Maryland. Their family home was located in Point Lookout.

As during the American Civil War, the secluded backwater swamps of Point Lookout harbored another military prison, the Turtledove Detention Camp, for Chinese-Americans suspected of espionage against the United States, during the Sino-American War (2066—2077). The infamous spy Wan Yang was arrested in Point Lookout and taken to the camp for interrogation, eventually being killed by the harsh and cruel interrogation techniques. Meanwhile, just off the coast of Point Lookout, a Chinese submarine patrolled and gathered information. This submarine was ultimately discovered and disabled, at which point a single submariner was captured and taken to Turtledove. The United States Navy successfully salvaged the submarine just prior to the Great War.

Post-War
Point Lookout was never directly hit by the nuclear bombs that fell during the Great War, but here, the water of Point Lookout's bogs were contaminated by the Potomac River that flows out of the Capital Wasteland, and the wasteland's irradiated terrain gives way to dense swamps and abandoned buildings where nature has largely replaced the human presence over two centuries. The area is home to the swampfolk, a crazed, highly deformed, inbred people who live all around the swamps of the region. Feral ghouls and swamplurks are a common sight here as well, as they are drawn to the area's radioactive swamp waters.

Point Lookout is almost devoid of any organized society or signs of civilization. Other than Tobar the Ferryman, Haley of Haley's Hardware, Madame Panada, Marguerite and the Point Lookout tribals, it is extremely difficult to find someone to trade with. However, Point Lookout should be a treasure trove of pre-War technology and artifacts, since it escaped the nuclear turmoil that scarred most of the Earth. Thus, Point Lookout is more than just a small swampy marsh, but a cache of pre-War technology waiting to be exploited. However, the amount of technology actually available in the area is limited, considering not only its rural location, but its isolation from the rest of the wasteland. The area became known to outsiders from the Capital Wasteland thanks to punga fruit, a unique fruit known to grow only in the local bogs, and many legends about the supposed treasures hidden there.

The pervasive radiation in the swamps (as well as frequent inbreeding) led to the birth and evolution of the swampfolk. The muck that contains the biogas, accumulated because of the radioactive contamination of the Civil War-era mass graves in the area. The decomposing bodies buried in these ancient mass graves were slowly decomposed into methane due to the unique environment, a dense limestone wetlands substratum. Due to the radiation's effects on the normal process of decay the mass Civil War-era graves in the area have become unusual patches of a greenish-gray, smoking and/or steaming earthy muck that releases flammable methane bubbles occasionally.

Locations
There are 31 marked locations within Point Lookout as well as a few unmarked ones.

They are as follows (unmarked locations in italics):

Appearances
Point Lookout is the eponymous location in which the Fallout 3 add-on Point Lookout takes place.

Divergence
In OTL John Smith discovered Point Lookout in 1608 and was injured in a gunpowder explosion in 1609 forcing him to return to England. He did not return to the Americas until 1615. While this divergence didn't (likely) effect the long term history of the United States it is one of the clear indications that things were diverging in small ways before 1947.