Ever been to Wales? Mantua? New Harmony or even Lund? Check out Eskdale, UT on google.
Maybe not a fortress, but in a predomanatly roadless area, with natural gravity fed water sources and farmland. And an attitude - not so much now, but it was stronger in the recent past.
You might wish to read the book “Folks of the Fringe” by Scott Card, a noted SF witer - a collention of shorts, it is an interesting read, to say the least.
A review from Amazon says, in part
“Only a few nuclear weapons fell. But in the chaos of famine and plague, there existed a few pockets of order. The strongest of them was the state of Deseret. The climate has changed, and the lake has filled up. There, on the fringes, brave, hardworking pioneers are making the desert bloom again.
I was stationed at Nellis for years and spent a lot of time in rural NV and on the border with UT. Those folks are country all right.
If you had to make a break from the big city because of a Depression, for example, I don’t know about you, but that is the part of the US that would not have food riots....
The Wastach Front is just another urban area, so we are in areement there.
For the fortress part, you have to check uot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Mountain_(Utah)
very much like the NORAD complex.
I've been to every single one of those towns, even considered "the enemy" in most of them. Was born and raised in a rural, exclusively Mormon, small Utah town - they aren't fortresses by any means.
Thanks for the update. I don’t expect it’s just Mormons who are “hunkering down”.