Mount Blair

Mount Blair is a location in the Ash Heap region of Appalachia. It was the site of large-scale resource extraction and surface mining operations before the Great War and includes a towering bucket-wheel excavator. It is a public workshop with claim and defend event quests.

Background
Located in Logan County, West Virginia, Mount Blair has been a notable element of Appalachian mining for centuries - and a symbol of labor disputes. In 1921, as part of the West Virginia Mine Wars, federal troops, and rioting coal miners clashed on the slopes of the mountain repeatedly. It comes as no surprise that the wealth of resources beneath the mountaintop and the resource-starved United States went hand in hand in the 21st century, leading to widespread ecological devastation, only accelerated by the erection of the Rockhound, a massive bucket excavator created by Hornwright Industrial and was capable of moving 11,000 cubic meters of earth per hour and could be manned by just a twelve-member crew.

The Rockhound slowly but surely strip-mined the mountain, turning Blair Mountain into Blair Hill. Even the riots by disenfranchised miners that temporarily seized control of the Rockhound in October 2077 failed to change the course of the company - or the destruction of Mount Blair.

Layout
Mount Blair is a flat expanse of strip-mined desolation, with burning coal vines in the north and west, abandoned mines to the south and east, and the massive Rockhound in the center. At the excavator end in the north is a maintenance scaffolding on the western side, which contains a weapons and ammunition workbench. On the opposite side is a generator shed and a field hospital, surrounded by derelict vehicles.

To the west is a mass of trailers, sitting among fiery veins. These contain a magazine spawn point. Just southeast of them are cracks in the earth used for mining and a generator warehouse. To the southeast lies abandoned mine shaft 6 and just north of it the warehouses containing two Vault-Tec bobblehead spawn points (westernmost trailer and eastern warehouse), another magazine spawn near the bobblehead, a power armor spawn point, and a weapons workbench.

Workshop
If the workbench on the resource extractor is claimed, a quest will be given to defend the workbench. After that, another quest to open the terminal in the control room will start. This will award the recipe to make ignition cores. By making four ignition cores and placing them in the four red generators, one can push the red button in the control room to start the excavator. This will run for thirty minutes, mining steel scrap, gold scrap, aluminum scrap, nuclear waste, black titanium, and more. All the resources will be dropped off in a box at the end of the top of the Rockhound's counterweight system - opposite the side that has the excavator bucket-wheel. Just beware, powering up the extractor will make defense missions pop, at least once, sometimes more, and it might also force you to defend against a scorchbeast. However, due to the workshop having a heavy gun emplacement on the ground like with several other workshops around Appalachia, it will aid in helping take down the scorchbeast should it come into its firing range.

Mount Blair can be claimed as a workbench settlement. The build area extends not on the ground, but on the Rockhound itself and covers the interior decks, outer scaffoldings, and the rear balance weight. On the ground, players can place extractors to generate food (9) and water (8).

Notable loot

 * Buck Nixon's Rockhound holotape - Holotape, on a console in the northern interior section, near a window overlooking the large arm.
 * Overseer's journal, entry 6 - Holotape, near the top.
 * Two potential Vault-Tec bobbleheads:
 * Near the large bulldozer warehouse southeast of the excavator, inside the trailer to the west, on the oval table.
 * In the basement (ID card needed) of one of the bulldozer garages, through the barred door, on or near the tall tool cabinet near the explosive canisters and metal shelving.
 * Four potential magazines:
 * Westernmost trailers.
 * Easternmost warehouses, in the eastern warehouse.
 * Inside the locked basement of the eastern warehouse - Can only be accessed during Personal Matters.
 * On the right arm of the Rockhound, inside a destroyed long structure, on top of the toilet.
 * Power armor chassis with T-series armor pieces - In a warehouse beside a green pickup truck east of the tower of the huge mining machine.
 * Two fusion cores:
 * Located within the main building.
 * Inside a small warehouse southwest of the workshop within range of the claim zone.

Appearances
Mount Blair appears only in Fallout 76.

Behind the scenes
Blair Mountain is a real-world mountain in West Virginia, located near the unincorporated community of Blair in Logan County. The area was most notably the site of the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in United States history, during which striking coal miners clashed with West Virginia lawmen before the United States Army intervened on orders from President Warren G. Harding.