The ruins of the Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark, also known as Lake Dolores, are prominent from the highway—twenty-three miles east of Barstow and forty-five miles west of Baker. Once said to have had the world’s longest raft ride, its endless rivers have now sat dry for over a decade, slides removed and concrete channels marvelously vandalized. For years there have been rumors of the park’s eventual reopening, but this seems less likely with each new layer of graffiti.
Other points of interest along this stretch of Interstate 15 have, in fact, closed and reopened, including the World’s Largest Thermometer in the town of Baker. Rising 134 feet high (the same number as the highest air temperature ever recorded in North America, in 1934 in Death Valley), it is easy to spot from the interstate and features a digital readout that displays the outside temperature. It was sold and closed in 2012 but reopened in 2014 with new energy-efficient LEDs and a visitor center.
Taller and brighter than the World’s Largest Thermometer is Ivanpah solar power plant, a futuristic landmark near the California/Nevada state line–a trio of blinding 450-foot-tall towers that rise above 3,500 acres of mirrors mounted on 173,500 heliostats. When the array went online in early 2014, it was likely the largest solar power plant in the world—certainly the largest thermal solar power plant.
Other notable sites along Interstate 15 are not immediately visible from the highway but still manage to become roadside attractions. The sign for the Zzyzx Road highway exit is itself an icon of the interstate, one that has inspired or lent its name to at least two horror movies, a literary journal, a band, several songs, a fictional company in a television series and a contemporary art exhibit. To many travelers, Zzyzx is nothing more than mysterious signage of uncertain pronunciation—a strange and curious marker of the middle of nowhere.
However, those who take the Zzyzx off-ramp and drive the four and a half miles to the end of the dirt road are treated to an unexpected oasis with perhaps an even more surprising history. Lush palms, pools and several concrete structures comprise the sprawling Zzyzx compound, also known as Soda Springs, at the western edge of Soda Dry Lake. This desert retreat was the vision of Curtis Howe Springer, who operated Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Resort for thirty years, from 1944 to 1974.
Springer—a radio evangelist and proponent of homeopathic health aides who hosted syndicated programs broadcast to over 200 radio stations in the United States and over 100 overseas at their peak—referred to himself as “a salesman…a Methodist preacher, vitamin salesman and resort owner.”[1] The serialized radio show emphasized the importance of following the Christian doctrine to become physically fit, mentally alert and spiritually sound. Central to this was the belief in the healing property of foods. A healthy diet was essential to becoming “internally, externally and eternally clean.”[2]
By 1928 Springer had embarked on his own line of health products, which he sold over the radio and through mail orders. These homeopathic concoctions included the Antediluvian Desert Herb Tea (described as a botanical laxative of herbs, roots and barks), Acidine (“nature’s normalizer for acid stomachs”), Hollywood Pep Cocktail (which contained “concentrated vital food energy” and was to be sprinkled over foods), Manna (“a blend of ten different fruits and vegetables”), O-M-R (“one-minute relief for indigestion”), RE-HIB (“a thorough acting anti-acid”) and Zy-Crystals (a combination of Epsom salts and salt harvested from Soda Dry Lake, to be topically applied to the scalp while holding one’s breath). Despite their colorful names, a breakdown of the products’ active ingredients suggests they are not so different from the homeopathic treatments many people use today.
He visited that site and found its remote location, access to water, and plentiful sunshine made it an ideal site for a retreat center. On September 13, 1944, Springer filed for mining claims on 12,800 acres of land for what was to be Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Resort—named Zzyzx (pronounced “zi-zex”) to be “the last word” in medicine—with the understanding that after five years of mining activity he would have the option to purchase the land.
On the 13th day of September 1944, my wife, my father, Jack Renie, and I packed food and a camping outfit for a trip into the great Mojave desert in search of Old Fort Soda…we discovered the crumpled remains of the old fort… A beautiful oasis with wild ducks, wild geese, fish in abundance but apparently abandoned by civilization. We camped there that night and the next morning, assuming it was public domain, we did the discovery work and set up monuments of rock in the event we found it was open for filing upon.
We then drove to the County Seat, San Bernardino, and found the property belonged to a relative of ours—good old Uncle Sam, or the United States Government. Since each person is limited to a certain number of acres to file upon (and there were only four of us in the discovery party) we got busy and interested a number of our friends and relatives to join with us in filing on twelve thousand eight hundred acres of land. Here was a brand new challenge for me to come out of retirement and go back to work.[3]
The compound began with several tents and grew to include numerous developments, including the two-story “Castle” residence, “Zycott” housing and other simple accommodations, a dining hall, lecture room, church, library and office (that also functioned as Springer’s recording studio), pool house, goat shed, diesel generator, subterranean rabbit chambers (to keep the rabbits cool in extreme heat) and a “Zzyport” runway. For this extensive construction, Springer recruited “helping hands” whom he picked up from Los Angeles’ Skid Row and put to work, in exchange for food, shelter and minimal wage.
Once completed, Zzyzx offered visitors a healthy environment. There, folks had a chance to detox and abstain from alcohol, smoking and combative quarreling and instead bask in sermons and sunshine. A special diet (largely of foods grown and raised on the property, such as rabbit’s meat, goat’s milk and fresh fruits and vegetables) restored their vigor while soaking in warm pools of “healing” mineral-rich water (that in actuality was heated water from the Mojave River whose terminus is Soda Lake) returned them back to health.[4]
The retreat center was publicized on Springer’s radio program, in newspaper advertisements, and in his newsletter The Elucidator, and remained a popular destination throughout the 1960s. Springer built a road connecting Zzyzx to the highway, where eye-catching signage promoted the retreat center as a roadside attraction where all were welcome. A fleet of buses and an eight-door Chevrolet utility vehicle would also shuttle guests to and from Zzyzx and locations in Los Angeles, such as the Figueroa Hotel, once a week. Springer used a sliding scale to calculate the cost of staying at the resort, though no one was turned away for lack of funds.
The compound could accommodate over 100 overnight guests at a time and continued to welcome visitors until its closure on April 11, 1974, when Springer was forcibly removed from the site by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for unauthorized use of federal land. The court, under Judge Francis C. Whelan, found that the mining claims Springer had filed did not authorize occupation or development of the land beyond mining activities. He was given a mere thirty-six hours to vacate the compound and salvage any of his belongings that he had amassed over the last thirty or so years.
Although Springer’s removal and the retreat center’s closure happened abruptly, his eviction had been preceded by years of lengthy legal proceedings, investigations and media scrutiny. A two-page article published in the Los Angeles Times on July 14, 1967, headlined “‘Squatter’ Owes Rent, U.S. Says,” reports that “super squatter” Springer was not authorized to use the 12,800 acres of government land for his retreat center, and that the BLM was seeking $34,187 from him in damages and back “rental.” Los Angeles Times writer Charles Hillinger, who seemed to have a personal vendetta against Springer, would go on to cover the story for over twenty years, exposing Springer as a “quack,” suggesting that he misled his followers into believing he was a bona fide doctor and Methodist minister, when in fact he was not certified as either.[5]
By November 1968 Springer had been arrested on a warrant charging him with sixty-five counts of false advertising and misrepresentation, brought on by the California Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Food and Drug Inspections. The state’s charges were based on the general notion that Springer was peddling foods such as celery, carrots, parsley and turnips as health-food supplements with unfounded therapeutic claims, as well as selling untested and potentially unsafe treatments, such as a “$25 cure-it-yourself hemorrhoid kit.”[6] He pleaded guilty on eight counts of violating state business and health codes, for false advertisement and mislabeling of food products.
This was followed by a court order to stop all advertising and activities at Zzyzx, and years of litigation over Springer’s right to occupy and develop federal property on the basis of mining claims. Springer maintained that his 1944 mining claims on the land, filed under the General Mining Act of 1872, permitted such development of the surface, arguing that the U.S. Land Office (the predecessor to the BLM) did not stipulate any specific extractive activity or locatable mineral and that his harvesting of salt crystals for health supplements qualified as mining for “economic minerals.” “There was no mention of the mining of gold. We were seeking minerals for both internal and external therapeutic purposes.”[7] However, government officials found that “Springer did almost everything but mine,” and thus had no claim to the property.[8]
After being evicted, Springer moved to Las Vegas but did not give up the fight over Zzyzx. He published lengthy print features in the Baker Valley News, whose readers generally supported Springer and his Zzyzx compound. An exhaustive editorial entitled “The Legal Rape of Zzyzx” appeared on October 18, 1984, in which Springer outlined the injustices he had endured. The newspaper article included printed letters of support from local stakeholders, outlining Springer’s many contributions to the Baker community at large, including building and maintaining Zzyzx Road and bringing the town of Baker a post office. Springer’s supporters argue that under Springer’s reign, the public land actually served the public—whereas the road to Zzyzx was closed off during its early years under BLM management, preventing public access.
Mojave Desert historian/writer Dennis Casebier (who would later go on to found Friends of the Mojave Road and the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association), was a personal friend of the Springers. Casebier recalls that upon returning to Zzyzx post-Springer occupation in 1983, he experienced what he called a very “unpublic” feeling at the site. “Missing were the WELCOME signs. In their place a battery of KEEP OUT signs had been erected—so many that I felt intimidated even though I had business there as a lecturer to one of the weekend classes.”[9]
Zzyzx fell into disrepair and lay dormant for a period of time, while the Bureau of Land Management sorted out various ideas of what to do with the site, including the possibility of demolishing Springer’s architectural contributions in order to return Soda Springs to its previous state.[10] Casebier remarks that the agency actually had bulldozers on-site, waiting for the green flag to demolish the complex, and, he believes, in the process deliberately destroyed most of Springer’s papers and documents detailing his tenure at Zzyzx. The BLM eventually worked out a deal with the California State University system to use the former resort as the Desert Studies Center and reopen the road.
Today, Zzyzx continues to function as the CSU Desert Studies Center, hosting students and researchers interested in studying desert ecology and geology. While the center’s focus has shifted to environmental studies, there are a few displays telling of its Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Resort origins. Springer’s visionary spirit is undeniably present—if you listen closely enough, you just might catch Doc Springer’s sermons broadcasting from along the Boulevard of Dreams.
This article is co-published with KCET Artbound. Visit Artbound’s Mojave Project page here.
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FOOTNOTES (click to open/close)
[1] Cecilia Rasmussen, “Zzyzx: An Unlikely Home of Hucksterism and Miracle Cures,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2002.
[2] Steven V. Robert, “Improbable Name, But…ZZYZX Is a Booming Health Spa,” Daytona Beach Sunday News, July 19, 1970.
[3] Curtis H. Springer, “One of the Strangest Stories Ever Told,” Baker Valley News, October 18, 1984.
[4] Charles Hillinger, “‘Squatter’ Owes Rent, U.S. Says,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1967.
[5] Hillinger, “‘Squatter’ Owes Rent.” The article quotes Springer, admitting he is not a licensed doctor or ordained minister, but rather is self-educated and “basically a salesman…a Methodist preacher, vitamin salesman and resort owner.”
[6] Charles Hillinger, “Radio Evangelist Seized on Food, Drug Charges,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1968.
[7] Curtis H. Springer, “The Legal Rape of Zzyzx,” Baker Valley News, October 18, 1984.
[8] “Zzyzx Goes Pffft—Evangelist is Evicted from Desert Tract,” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1974.
[9] Dennis Casebier, “Zzyzx: Unrest at the End of the Alphabet,” Nevadan [Sunday supplement to the Las Vegas Review], June 10, 1984.
[10] Dennis Casebier, interview with the author at the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association, Goffs, CA, January 5, 2015. Casebier conducted extensive interviews with Springer from 1981–1985. These interviews are archived at the MDHCA.
Audio track and video courtesy CSU Desert Studies Center. Photo of Lake Tuendae at the CSU Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx, CA by Aurora Tang.