Unveiling the Mystery of Zzyzx Road in the Mojave Desert

Roadtrippers making the drive between Southern California and Las Vegas have probably caught notice of an awfully strange exit sign on Interstate 15.

What’s not unusual is the somewhat random exit sign pointing towards the empty desert with not a building in view. That’s a pretty normal occurrence on the long empty stretches of the Mojave Desert.

The highway exit sign is strange because of the spelling of the street name, Zzyzx Road. Nope, that’s not a typo. It’s the name of the street and just the start of this strange tourist tale from the Mojave Desert.

History of Soda Springs

There are few natural bodies of water that exist in the harsh environment of the Mojave Desert. One of these is the Soda Springs area, which was a source of water for Mohave and Chemehuevi people.

Later, it was a reliable source of water in the desert that was used to quench the thirst of not only explorers coming through the region, but also many officers of the United States Army when camped in and patrolling the desert.

But it was going to take an even more important role for tourists in the Mojave Desert in the 1940s.

Curtis Spranger’s Zzyzx Resort

In the 1940s, Curtis Spranger struck it big in the area with a mining claim and decided to build his own health resort to attract Mojave travelers to stop in the area. He named the resort Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Resort.

He then hit the airwaves proclaiming the health benefits of a vacation getaway to Zzyzx Mineral Springs, self-proclaiming himself as a doctor. 

Hundreds of visitors made the pilgrimage to the health resort and many more had “health related” items sent to them, such as herbal teas and Hollywood Pep Cocktail, instead.

According to the Mojave National Preserve, the nearby interstate road trip town of Baker had to build a post office just to accommodate all of the resort’s mail.

By the late 1960s, tourists were on to his story and the complaints mounted against Spranger and his Zzyzx health resort. He was accused by the Food and Drug Administration for false claims and advertising. He was also in the crosshairs of the Internal Revenue Service for tax evasion.

He ended up spending some time in jail and then ended up living his final years in nearby Las Vegas.

Zzyzx Today

The past glory of Zzyzx health resort has long gone. But today, it may be…