How Zzyzx Road got its name

[jlw]

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/16/how-zzyzx-road-got-its-name.html
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[Boundegar]

I figured he was a big fan of Zork, like me.

[s2redux]

I’m guessing that Gwyneth Paltrow is familiar with this guy…

[anon29631895]

Ah, but how did this road get its name?

[Boundegar]

That’s from Zork too. Right after you ring the bell.

[jhbadger]

. He proclaimed himself to be the "last of the old-time medicine men", but the American Medical Association disagreed. They proclaimed him "King of the Quacks" in 1969

Potayto, Potato. There’s a reason why another term for “quack” is “snake oil salesman”, as that was a favorite of old-time medicine men.

[badtux99]

Soda Spring was a stop on the old Mojave Road wagon trail many years before this, before the railroads came through, and was a stop on the Native American trails between the Colorado River and the Pacific Ocean years before that. It is an area with a long, long history… And no, Soda Spring was never a hot spring – and never advertised as such by “Doctor” Springer, who only advertised it as a mineral spring with “healing properties”. Yes, it is a mineral spring, thus the name of the spring. The only “healing” it ever did, of course, was of “Dr.” Springer’s pocketbook.

Today the former resort is owned by California State University which holds courses out there on desert ecology and such. One of these days I want to take their flint-knapping extension course. It’s fairly cheap and it gives you a good insight on how our predecessors could survive without all our modern high-tech goodies in what is a ridiculously inhospitable environment.