What fictional Maine town first appeared in Stephen King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone? The answer is Castle Rock.
Castle Rock is one of Stephen King's best-known fictional Maine towns. It first appeared in The Dead Zone, published in 1979, when protagonist Johnny Smith travels there while helping local authorities investigate the Castle Rock Strangler. King later reused the town as a setting and reference point across many stories.
The town's name was borrowed from the mountain fort in William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies. Its broader character was influenced by King's home state and, especially, by Durham, Maine. Castle Rock became a kind of shared geographic anchor for King's fictional universe, even when stories focused on different characters and periods.
The town is central to Cujo and appears in works including The Body, Needful Things, and The Dark Half. It is often confused with Derry, the setting associated with It, or Jerusalem's Lot, which appears in Salem's Lot. Chester's Mill, meanwhile, is the town trapped beneath the mysterious dome in Under the Dome.