Las Vegas is a city in the Nevada desert. Randall Flagg gathered his followers there.
The Stand[]
Rioting, looting and vigilantism swept Las Vegas as the superflu's uncontrollable outbreak led to the total collapse of civilization. After a few weeks, almost everyone in the city was dead. Randall Flagg, "the Dark Man" or "the Walkin' Dude," appeared there and began summoning followers to him. People attracted to power, or to law and order (even at a steep price), were common among those who answered Flagg's call.
As more survivors made their way to the city, Las Vegas cleaned up, electrical power was restored, and telephone lines were returned to minimal working order as the Walkin' Dude launched a sweeping list of public works programs. Flagg created an extremely strict code of laws that controlled all aspects of life in Las Vegas. Free speech, something taken for granted under the old United States, vanished entirely, and the use of recreational drugs of any kind was banned. Flagg's draconian laws ordered that many violations be punished by death, and recreational drug use meant death by public crucifixion.
Society of the People[]
Las Vegas remained Flagg's center of power as his followers began searching the surrounding wasteland and restoring Las Vegas' infrastructure to working order. Las Vegas was not the only place where survivors who followed Flagg's authoritarian rule gathered, however. A small number of people lived in the area of Seattle, Washington, and in Portland, Oregon. There were also "a fistful each" of survivors in Idaho and in New Mexico. During his later meeting with her, Flagg claimed to Dayna Jurgens that his state was "nothing but a confederacy, with me as the titular head" but this was one of his many bald-faced lies.
Salvage teams found operable jet aircraft and helicopters at Creech Air Force Base, and with a surviving civilian pilot or two among them, they began training to use them. Other "defensive measures," as Flagg himself termed them, took place as Flagg's so-called Society of the People moved personnel out to Searles Lake, California, to Edwards Air Force Base, and the atomic reactor facility at Yakima Ridge in Washington state.
Work crews and salvage teams continued carrying out repair and cleanup efforts, and enough children were gathered among the survivors that Vegas began to hold school classes again. Buses that had once belonged to local public schools were used both for their original purpose and as general public transport, and former local police cars were used by law enforcement agents of Flagg's government.
The speedy restoration of order and some of the comforts of civilization came at a steep price. In addition to a draconian system of law, the inhabitants of Las Vegas were subject to Flagg's will in every sense of the word. Flagg's all-seeing Eye allowed him to literally sense treason, doubt, hesitation and disloyalty among his subjects, and his henchmen dealt with all such elements swiftly and harshly.
Death of a City[]
Despite his ever-tightening iron grip, Flagg's control began to falter. He began making mistakes, and people began to slip away in the night in increasing numbers as a sense that something ominous was coming developed among Flagg's followers. That something arrived in the form of the Trashcan Man, who retrieved a nuclear warhead from Nellis Air Force Base following his sabotage of the helicopters, which killed all of the flight instructors and most of the trainee crews. Trashcan Man intended to offer the warhead's power as a gift, an offering in apology for his misdeeds to Flagg.
As the Hand of God descended from the sky and armed the warhead, Flagg abandoned his human form and vanished. The nuclear warhead then exploded: "and righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire."
Las Vegas was completely destroyed in the explosion.
Dolan's Cadillac[]
The city of Las Vegas is seen and referred to, but plays no major role in the events of the story.
Appearances[]