Curtis Howe Springer (December 2, 1896 – August 19, 1985) was an American radio evangelist, self-proclaimed medical doctor and Methodist minister best known for founding the Zzyzx Mineral Springs resort located within Southern California's Mojave Desert. He was also the host of well-known evangelical syndicated radio programs that were broadcast throughout the United States for several decades.
Springer was in actuality neither a doctor nor a minister, and he described himself as the "last of the old-time medicine men." In 1969, the American Medical Association labeled him the "King of Quacks". In the early 1970s, the federal government discovered that Springer held no legal rights to the land where Zzyzx stood; consequently, he was evicted from the space and briefly imprisoned. Springer had several children, including a daughter, Marilou,
Early career
He claimed to have been a private in the United States Army, where he taught boxing. In Springer's early life, he "drummed up crowds for William Jennings Bryan's tirades against demon rum" and was a sheet music vendor at Billy Sunday's evangelical services. Following World War I, Springer worked at a school in Florida. Springer was fired by 1930, and the school was forced into bankruptcy shortly afterward. In time, Springer erected a sixty-room hotel, a church, a cross-shaped health spa with mineral baths, a radio broadcast studio, a private airstrip dubbed "Zyport" and several other buildings which included a castle. The "Boulevard of Dreams" was a divided parkway leading to an oasis on Lake Tuendae, later identified as the habitat of the endangered Mohave chub. After his release from prison, Springer and his wife relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada,