The King of Quacks
by C. V. Wooster
Reader answers for The King of Quacks
What it's about
In 1944, Curtis Howe Springer filed mining claims on federal land at Soda Springs in the Mojave Desert, named the place Zzyzx so it would be the last word in health, and set about building a resort he had no deed to own. He called himself a doctor and a preacher. He was neither. What he was, the American Medical Association eventually said, was the King of Quacks.
From a radio program carried at its peak by hundreds of stations, Springer sold mail-order remedies with names like Antediluvian Tea and Hollywood Pep Cocktail—preparations investigators found to be little more than laxative herbs, baking soda, and vegetable juice. At Zzyzx he used labor recruited from Los Angeles’s Skid Row to raise a sixty-room hotel, a two-story house he called the Castle, a church, a radio studio, the palm-lined Boulevard of Dreams, and a man-made lake he named Tuendae. Guests came by the Wednesday bus from downtown Los Angeles for mineral baths, sermons, and a dry Christian regimen. The “hot springs” were heated with a boiler.
The land stayed public. A mining claim is not a title, and Springer’s claims failed the law’s test: he did almost everything but mine. After years of state false-advertising cases and federal ejectment litigation, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that he had no right to the ground. On April 11, 1974, after roughly thirty years on the claim, federal authorities removed him. The Bureau of Land Management cleared the spa; in 1976 the site became the California State University Desert Studies Center. Lake Tuendae still holds the endangered Mohave tui chub.
The King of Quacks is the true-crime history of how one radio voice turned a desert spring into a kingdom of donations and nostrums—and how the courts, at last, took the kingdom back.
Who it's for
The catalog lists The King of Quacks as Historical Narrative by C. V. Wooster.
Subjects listed on the book page: Zzyzx, Mojave Desert, mining law, quackery, con artist, American Southwest, radio history, nonfiction, narrative history, desert culture.
The catalog lists this title as coming soon.
Similar books
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Reading order and age notes
The King of Quacks is not listed as part of a numbered series on this site.
Yes. It draws on the federal court record, including the Ninth Circuit's 1972 and 1974 opinions in United States v. Springer, the AMA Bureau of Investigation's 1935 report in JAMA, contemporary newspaper coverage and National Park Service history, and it ends with a full note on sources.
Where to buy
Retail links listed on the book page:
Frequently asked questions
Who was Curtis Howe Springer?
A self-styled doctor and radio minister who held federal land in the Mojave Desert under mining claims, built a health resort there called Zzyzx, and broadcast his cures on hundreds of radio stations for thirty years before the federal courts ended his occupation and he was evicted in 1974.
What is Zzyzx?
Zzyzx is a real place off Interstate 15 in the Mojave Desert, on the road to Las Vegas. Springer named it so it would be the last word in health, and last in any alphabetical list. Today it is the California State University Desert Studies Center.
Is the book sourced?
Yes. It draws on the federal court record, including the Ninth Circuit's 1972 and 1974 opinions in United States v. Springer, the AMA Bureau of Investigation's 1935 report in JAMA, contemporary newspaper coverage and National Park Service history, and it ends with a full note on sources.
When does The King of Quacks release?
Coming soon. Sign up for the newsletter to be notified on release day.