I recently started a new game and I was exploring the Minefield, unlike the seven or eight other times I've been there I was really paying attention to the details of the place.

I believe there may have been a post war settlement there, a group of people who moved those cars into walls and set up those barries. There is no way that Arkansas did that and I doubt raiders would spend there time building that just to let an old man walk in with a sniper rifle and scare them away.

And then there is the matter of the mines, why are they there? I think that maybe when those people abandon that settlement (if they did infact leave) they didn't want people (or raiders) to go or live there. Another possibility is raiders wiped out the settlement, found or had a lot of landmines and placed them all over the place, so the settlementwouldn't be recolonized for many years.

My guess is there was a post-war settlement there, the people in the settlement set up the defenses, and then the slavers came from Paradise Falls and killed or enslaved everyone but Arkansas, who somehow managed to hide or get away.

As far as the mines go, it's been my understanding that Arkansas placed those to keep other people away, after the slavers attacked.