In 1944, radio evangelist Curtis Howe Springer filed a mining claim on public lands at Soda Springs and established Zzyzx Mineral Springs resort, then over the next 30 years transformed this desert oasis into the attractive landscape seen today. He created the name Zzyzx as the last word in health so it would be the last listing in any directory. When Springer stocked his new lake with fish from a nearby spring, he inadvertently took the first step in saving the endangered Mohave tui chub, a fish that had once lived all along the Mojave River but by the 1960s survived in only one small spring near here; after he moved some into his lake, their numbers increased, and in recent years biologists have moved chubs to other ponds and plan to continue establishing new populations. The bath house at the end of the Boulevard of Dreams included a small pool and indoor and outdoor cement tubs for mineral soaks. By the early 60s, Zzyzx was at its peak and could accommodate up to 100 guests, but legal problems soon caught up with Springer and he was evicted from the site in 1974. The site is now the California State University Desert Studies Center on the edge of Soda Dry Lake, where scientists and students from around the world study the Mojave Desert and the public can attend weekend extended education courses. The grade of the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, developed in 1907 by Francis “Borax” Smith to carry ore, cargo, and passengers between desert mining districts and the main railway connection at Ludlow, still stretches across Soda Dry Lake despite the line's abandonment in 1940. Remnants of rectangular evaporating ponds on the dry lake bed mark a soda extraction facility that operated between 1907 and 1912, producing compounds from lake brine for laundry products, baking soda, and caustic soda that were shipped on the railroad. Many of the roads, buildings, ponds, and plantings date from Springer's era developing a health resort here.