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Meaning & History
The name of a place in Southern California, in the Mojave Desert, which was the site of the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa from 1944 to 1974, run by self-proclaimed medical doctor and Methodist minister Curtis Howe Springer (1896-1985). The place name was invented by Springer as a gimmick to ensure that his resort would be 'the last word' in health. In the early 1970s, the United States federal government discovered that he held no legal rights to the land where Zzyzx stood; consequently, Springer was evicted and briefly imprisoned.