If you’ve ever driven Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, you may have noticed one of California’s strangest road signs: Zzyzx Road.
The turnoff lies in the Mojave Desert, about an hour east of Barstow. From the freeway, the road leads roughly four miles into an increasingly empty landscape before reaching a small oasis on the edge of Soda Dry Lake.
But the unusual name isn’t ancient. It was invented by Curtis Howe Springer, a radio evangelist and self-proclaimed doctor who arrived here in the 1940s. Springer filed a mining claim on federal land and created a health resort at what was then known as Soda Springs. He renamed it Zzyzx, reportedly because he wanted it to be the last word in health and because the name would appear last alphabetically.
Springer promoted the desert retreat as a place where visitors could improve their health through mineral water, special diets, exercise and religious guidance. He built guest accommodations, mineral baths and a distinctive cross-shaped swimming pool. Palm trees transformed the otherwise barren landscape into an unlikely desert oasis.
There was just one problem: much of Springer’s story was fiction.
He wasn’t the doctor he claimed to be, his supposed natural hot springs weren’t naturally hot, and the federal land on which he had built his resort didn’t belong to him. After years of disputes with authorities, Springer was finally evicted in 1974.
Many traces of his strange desert empire remain, including the deteriorating swimming pool, old buildings and rows of palm trees.
The most beautiful part of Zzyzx today is Lake Tuendae, a small man-made pond surrounded by palms. It provides habitat for birds and the endangered Mohave tui chub, a fish native to the Mojave River system. Beyond it stretches the brilliant white expanse of Soda Dry Lake and the surrounding desert.
Despite its ghost-town appearance, Zzyzx is not abandoned. Since 1976, the former resort has been home to the California State University Desert Studies Center, where students and scientists conduct research on desert geology, wildlife, water and ecology.
Visitors can explore the designated public area around Lake Tuendae, but the research center itself is active and some areas are off limits.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Zzyzx is how quickly the world changes after leaving I-15. Only a few miles from the stream of cars traveling between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the freeway noise disappears. In its place are palm trees, an old mineral spa, a dry prehistoric lake and one of the strangest chapters in California desert history.
And really, with a road sign that says ZZYZX, how could you possibly drive past without wondering what’s at the end?
