Up Next
Back to Show
Lost LA
Zzyzx: The Snake Oil That Fueled a Community
The kind of dreams that Curtis Howe Springer peddled were tied to health and prosperity, but it didn't take long before "the last of the old medicine men" brought Zzyzx to ruins. CSU Desert Studies Center's Jason Wallace outlines the ploy Springer used, a radio ministry, and how his bogus claims eventually caught up with him in the 1970s.
Support Provided By
Season
26:40
Tiki culture isn’t a Polynesian import — it’s a Hollywood creation.
26:49
Archives reveal the “forgotten plague” that shaped Southern California: tuberculosis.
26:50
Visit Hollywood Forever, Evergreen and Forest Lawn, where L.A. reinvented the cemetery.
26:40
The hiker-activists who led Angelenos into their hills and onto the trails.
26:39
How Filipino Americans in Southern California are making their heritage more visible.
26:47
Iconic fast-food chains from McDonald’s to Taco Bell were born in SoCal.
26:37
After internment camps, Japanese Americans made L.A.'s Crenshaw neighborhood their home.
26:04
During WWII, L.A. became a sanctuary for Europe’s accomplished artists and intellectuals.
26:46
Dig deep into Southern California’s past to reveal lessons for our climate-changed future.
26:41
Explore a forgotten age when winemaking was Southern California’s principal industry.
26:46
Why did Los Angeles dismantle one of the greatest rail transit systems in the nation?
26:40
Explore the lasting impact of the Shindana Toy Company, created out of the need for community empowerment following the 1965 Watts uprising, whose ethnically correct black dolls forever changed the American doll industry.