San Bernardino County history: Zzyzx, CA – Welcome to San Bernardino County

Zzyzx is the last word in the dictionary and is a road in the california desert.

Road sign indicating Exit 23 for Zzyzx Road with a desert landscape and mountains in the background. — *Zzyzx is near Baker, CA.*

Zzyzx, CA was originally known as Soda Springs, a natural spring located in the Mojave Desert about seven miles south of Baker, CA. During the 1700s, Spanish explorers used the site as an outpost, and in the 1850s, it had become a campsite for railroad crews.

In 1944, Curtis Howe Springer, a person who had identified as a medical doctor, filed a mining claim for 12,000 acres surrounding the springs. He established a health spa at the site and named it Zzyzx (rhymes with Why-sik) as a gimmick to make it “the last word” in health.

Springer created an imitation hot spring by using boilers to heat several pools. Over time, Springer built a hotel, church, radio broadcast studio, private airstrip and even a castle. By the 1970s, the federal government determined that Springer held no legal rights to the land where Zzyzx stood. He was evicted from the space and Zzyzx was reclaimed by the federal government.

Today, the Bureau of Land Management has authorized California State University to manage the land in and around Zzyzx. CSU campuses use it as their Desert Studies Center and maintain it as a protected habitat for the Mohave tui chub fish and desert pupfish originally stocked by Springer in his man-made pond.

The information in this historical feature was originally part of a video series produced by the Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk’s office.

Additional County Update News – September 11, 2025