Rebuild and Reeducate: Fallout: New Vegas, Freeside, the Old Mormon Fort, and the Meanings of Memory

Our Spring Lecture Series continues on May 4th with Dr. David Schwartz, UNLV History Professor and Ombuds. He will be speaking on this site, its portrayal in the video game Fallout: New Vegas, and the power of memory. The lecture begins at 6pm, is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a short Q&A.

The land we stand on has had many purposes over the past 150 years, from Paiute campground Mormon outpost to working ranch to concrete lab to restaurant. Today, it tells the story of this valley, helping to share a collective memory that had been obscured. In the video game Fallout: New Vegas, the Old Mormon Fort is in the heart of Freeside, a post-atomic area of Las Vegas in which a pre-war school for Elvis impersonators is believed to be a church, and the fort itself is home to a group seeking to uplift area's residents. The reuses of the Fort and other locales in the game make a serious point about what history means, what happens when we forget it, and what our obligations are to preserve it.