Zzyzx, California

Located on the edge of a large dry lake, Zzyzx, also known as Soda Springs, is the site of a former health resort established in 1944 by an evangelist named Curtis Springer, who advocated physical as well as spiritual fitness, and sold health products using the soda from the lake. The resort was popular until 1974, when Springer was removed bodily from the site by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which claimed that he had never received official title to the land. In 1976, the California State University system took over the resort, turning it into a desert ecology study center called The Desert Studies Center (DSC).