Soda Springs in the Mojave Desert developed from a vital water stop into a research center through successive eras of exploration, travel, military use, industry, abandonment, and preservation. In 1776 Father Francisco Garces, likely the first European to cross the Mojave Desert, stopped at this dry lake with Mojave guides while traveling west to Mission San Gabriel, and in 1826 Jedediah Strong Smith became the first known Anglo-Saxon to visit the area, passing the springs on his way to the Pacific and returning the following year; by 1829 other trappers and explorers, including parties guided by Kit Carson, also camped here. After the American takeover of California and statehood, survey teams sought wagon roads, water, and railroad routes, stopping here in 1853 and 1854, when Lt. Amiel Whipple first named Soda Lake. In 1857 Edward Fitzgerald Beale established the Mojave Road as a freight and postal route, and the U.S. Army used imported camels there in its Great Camel Experiment before abandoning them. In the 1860s the Army built Hancock's Redoubt here along the Mojave Road to protect travelers, replacing earlier works with a more substantial stone structure by 1867 and maintaining it as a full-time outpost of Camp Cady from August 21, 1867 until May 23, 1868. For about 30 years Soda Springs served eastbound and westbound travelers as a rest stop and refuge; renamed Shenandoah Camp in 1885 and soon afterward Soda Station by operator George Hetzel, it became a trading post, and in 1900 Frank and Sarah Riggs briefly operated a mill here before abandoning an unprofitable claim. In 1905 the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad reached Soda Springs, linking mining districts and desert towns with outside rail lines, and the Pacific Salt and Soda Company used ponds and evaporation to produce trona sludge from lake brine and spring water, but refining costs ended the venture by 1912; another attempt begun in 1914 was halted when floods inundated the dry lake in 1916. Flooding also damaged the railroad, which never fully recovered and ceased operation on June 14, 1940, after which the site declined and its structures were salvaged or crumbled. Just before the end of World War II, Dr. Curtis H. Springer and Helen LeGerda created Zzyzx Mineral Springs, a religion-oriented health resort, modifying the springs, planting trees, excavating ponds, upgrading Zzyzx Road, and rebuilding Soda Station, but their mining claims on public land were overturned and they were evicted in 1974. Increased public awareness then led the Bureau of Land Management to protect Soda Springs and establish the Desert Studies Center there in 1976, managed with California State University campuses as a field station, classroom, and research facility for the study of Mojave desert life and habitats.