King Of Quacks

Hey true weirdos, at the end of this episode, stick around if you want for a little bonus content and conversation. Your old friend Curtis Springer coming to you with the facts about life and how to live it. As we answer your questions from Zyzx Mineral Springs, way out here in the heart of the great Mojave Desert of California.

Where we have 12,000 acres devoted to teaching folks how to get a greater joy out of life. Now we want you to come out here when you can enjoy this beautiful 12,000 acre oasis. Have a wonderful time with us. In the meantime, have your paper and pencil ready in about 14 and a half minutes. Because I want to send a free package of one of our products to each of you listening in.

There'll be no charge whatsoever. We want you to use it in your own home and at our expense to prove to you how you can assist nature in building up your system through sensible habits of eating and living. Media, religion, and the flim flam scam. Curtis Howe Springer was the master of it all. You see in my particular work friends, I don't pull for any one branch of the therapy or of the sciences of healing.

Because I've studied them all. I have my degrees in the various ones and I'm very proud of them. Though I do not practice. There were no degrees. But Springer most definitely did practice. He practiced the art of the con. And here's how good he was. Springer built himself a town on land he didn't own. Selling services that didn't exist.

Welcome to Zyzx, California. And they got a small beam of light. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Truly weird stuff. Jump on Interstate 15 out of Los Angeles and head for Las Vegas. If the traffic gods are on your side, it's maybe a four and a half to five hour drive. Make sure your gas tank is full and grab yourself some snacks because that's a long ride through the desert.

Even longer if you make a few stops. There's a cool Route 66 museum in Barstow that's worth a visit. If that's not your thing, check out the Old Woman Meteorite. The oldest one in the United States. Right there in Barstow, which also lays claim to an absolutely gigantic fireman's helmet. A memorial to the firefighters who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001.

Grab lunch at the world's oldest Del Taco. Go for the crunch-tada tostada with a side of house-made guac. And once you're back on the highway, keep your eyes peeled for a sign that reads, Zizek's Road. I don't blame you if you hesitate to make that turn. You're in the Mojave Desert, home to Death Valley, the hottest place in North America.

It can feel more than a little bit spooky out there in the desert. And the desert is an unforgiving environment. It's easy to get lost, and it's even easier to get into trouble. Heat and hypothermia, of course. But there are other risks. Ask the six men who were murdered there in January 2024. A drug deal gone bad. A 911 call from an injured man who had no idea where he was sparked the investigation.

The crime went down in an area so remote that the law had to call in planes from the California Highway Patrol just to find the scene and the six bodies. Then there are car crashes. That wide-open interstate in the middle of nowhere. Let's just say it keeps the Kern County Coroner's Office pretty busy. So maybe you're a little hesitant to take that turn onto Zizek's Road.

It'll be five miles until you see a thing. And five miles can feel like a thousand miles when all around you is vast desert. No sign of people and not much in the way of cell service. The last stretch of that road isn't even paved. There's a real no-one-can-hear-you-scream vibe to the place. And then there it is. One of those signs they have in national parks.

Many of the roads, buildings, ponds, and plantings date from the Curtis Springer era when a radio preacher from Los Angeles developed a religious health resort here. When you come out to Zizek's Mineral Spring, you have these wonderful hot mineral baths here. Three swimming pools to swim in at different temperatures. A lake full of fish for fishing.

The finest of foods organically raised fruits and vegetables for you. Also steaks and chops and poultry and fish. The finest of foods. All our baking 100% stone-grounded whole grain. Homemade ice cream. Not little dippers full, but full big soup bowls full. Or great big scoops fall on your tray the way you wish. Welcome to Zizek's.

Go for a walk. Have a look around. There's the intersection of the Boulevard of Dreams and Castle Way. Those abandoned buildings look a little creepy. And that kid's swing set sitting empty in the baking heat is a whole apocalyptic vibe. Follow the path that takes you around the lake. Yep, a lake. Surrounded by thirsty looking palm trees with an odd little stone island right in the center.

The place is a natural oasis in the desert with a natural spring. Used to be called Soda Springs. A life-giving resource for the native peoples for generations. Then for pioneers exploring the West and eventually for the U.S. Army. When Curtis Springer discovered the place, he saw an opportunity. Money isn't important to us.

It's more important to be able to tell you the facts about life and how to live it. Boys and girls, anytime you hear a pitch about how money isn't important, rest assured that money is the only thing that's important. You're dealing with a different group when you deal with us. We're a non-profit, tax-exempt and charitable institution.

All our directors work without a penny of salary. Myself and my wife included. Because we have incomes separate and apart from this. Our only interest is to help you if you'll permit us to do so. Curtis Howe Springer opened his wellness retreat at Soda Springs on 12,000 acres of federal land. Land he was squatting on illegally.

A vision this grand called for a grand new name. Something, Springer said, that represented the very last word in health. And so the town of Zyzix was born. What is it about us that makes us such an easy mark for the con, the grift, the flim-flam man? Why are we such suckers when it comes to hucksters who have the gift of spinning our dreams and hopes and our hatreds and grievances into fairy tales of a better tomorrow?

Fairy tales we can make come true with our dollars and our votes. Say a thing loud enough and for long enough and with all the brash confidence you can muster, you've got our attention. If you write to us and want to come to Zyzix Mineral Springs and you haven't got a penny in the world, if you send us a letter from your preacher or priest or rabbi or your doctor, and after investigation we find you need what we have and you can't afford to pay, we'll invite you to come for one month absolutely free.

And thank God for the privilege. Curtis Howe Springer was born in December 1896 in Birmingham, Alabama, or in Wheeling, West Virginia. Facts can be a hard thing to pin down when you're dealing with a person who's inventing himself as he goes. Springer's story is a slippery one. He claimed he taught boxing in the U.S. Army, a detail that no one's yet been able to prove.

But one thing is true for sure. Springer was touched early by religious zeal. He managed to land a gig working for one of the greats, evangelist preacher Billy Sunday. Civilization and society rests on morals. Morals rest on religion. Religion rests on the Bible and faith in God and in Jesus Christ. The Bible doesn't condemn any man because of his wealth.

The Bible says the man that don't provide for his family is worse than an infidel. According to our standard of gold and silver, Abraham was worth a billion and a half of dollars. David was worth three billion. Solomon was worth five billion. Solomon could have hired Andrew Carnegie for a butler, J. Pierpont Morgan to cut his lawn, and Andrew Mellon for a shopper, and John Dee looked to black his boots.

America needs a tidal wave of the old time religion. America needs to be taken down to God's bathhouse and the hose turned on her. And the time isn't far distant when the wheels of God's judgment are going to go sweeping through this old God-hating world. And I want to take a pledge in this audience to join me in a pledge that you will never rest until this old God-hating, Christ-hating, whiskey-soaked, Sabbath-breaking, blaspheming, infidel, bootlegging old world is bound to the cross of Jesus Christ by the golden chains of love.

During the early part of the 20th century, Billy Sunday was the most famous evangelist in all of the United States. Between the years 1896 and 1935, he delivered more than 20,000 sermons. Enormous crowds showed up to hear him speak. Since Billy Sunday was also a professional baseball player, he used his games to promote his preaching and once even hired a circus sideshow giant as an usher.

Billy Sunday hated liquor, was a fierce advocate for prohibition, and by all accounts, as true and fervent a Christian gentleman as they came. Curtis Springer sold sheet music before and during Billy Sunday's evangelical events. He paid attention. He learned from the great man. But what he learned had far less to do with scripture and gospel than it did showmanship and self-promotion.

After World War I, Springer made his way to Florida where he found work as a teacher and a wife by the name of Mary Louise Berkebile. The couple moved to Chicago where Springer worked at an automotive technical school called Greer College. That didn't last. The school fired Springer in 1930 and filed for bankruptcy not long afterward.

With the encouragement of his wife, Springer made a career change, moving into the business of operating health spas. This wasn't nearly as random then as it sounds to us now. There was serious money to be had in developing properties that boasted water with curative powers. Mineral springs, sulfur springs, back then they called it taking the waters.

Believers, including some of the best medical minds of the day, swore that hydropathy procedures could cure everything from ennui to cancer. By 1930, when Springer got into the game, there were more than 2,000 hot and cold spring resorts in America. And most offered amenities far beyond a dip in the bath. Thanks to our forebears, those wretched, stingy, pleasure-loathing Puritans, folks back then didn't dare just have a good time.

That would be wasteful, sinful, and completely unproductive. Which is why so many of those healing water resorts also offered gambling, music, theater, even captive alligators. Rich people would go to take the waters and have themselves a little fun in the process. No one the wiser. Springer founded the Haven of Rest Health Resort in Fort Hill, Pennsylvania in 1931.

He didn't stick around for the tedious day-to-day of running the place. Instead, he attached a whole bunch of initials to his name and hit the lecture circuit. His lectures had names like Building Mind Volume and Foods that Build a Healthy and Vitalic Body. Depending where he was, he might be an M.D. or a Ph.D. or a D.O. That's a doctor of osteopathic medicine.

Or an N.D., a naturopathic doctor. He also tweaked his resume to declare himself the former dean of Greer College and even invented a handful of schools and institutions that he claimed to represent. Like the American College of Doctors and Surgeons. That sounds official. So does the National Academy and Westlake College of West Virginia.

Wild, right? But just making stuff up was so much easier to do back then. There was no internet, no Google. Plus, who questioned the great Dr. Springer? His lectures were free, though he did ask for donations. And, of course, he had something to sell. Private psychoanalysis at $25 per session. Springer had no training in psychology or psychiatry, but he figured, how hard could it be?

Four of the five things essential to vitalic living are free. Water, air, exercise, and the proper mental reaction to life and food. Food is the only thing that costs money. Build a body that is physically fit and you'll develop a brain that is clear and alert. You cannot work mentally unless you're physically clean. Eat the right food and do not imbibe medicines.

I mean, okay, that makes some sense, right? But here's the thing. It's tough to get rich by just saying things that make sense. If you want to get rich, you need to name a problem. And then declare that you alone have the correct solution for a price. And if you want to get really rich, make sure the problem you name is really big.

We know that 40 million people are wearing glasses. That tonsils are being yanked out by the ton. That 95 out of every 100 men have more cavities in their teeth than sound teeth. Every type of animal known to science lives from 4 to 5 times the period it takes them to gain maturity. At that rate, man should live to at least 140 or 150 years.

There's no reason why we should not live that long. The only reasons are that we either do not want to live, we're tired of living, or we don't know how to live. Now you're talking. Now you're in business. And Springer most certainly was. Having made his way to Chicago, Springer landed on a big idea. Radio. He approached WGN about broadcasting his lectures.

They were impressed by Springer's resume, so management took it under consideration. And then WGN did something that is honestly kind of shocking. They ran a background check. I say shocking because I've spent my career in radio. And we've always joked that if like a rancid cheeseburger could get ratings, then it would have a job.

But in the summer of 1934, WGN was running one very tight ship. WGN contacted the American Medical Association. What do you know about this Dr. Curtis Howe Springer? The American Medical Association knew this. Springer was not a licensed physician. The AMA took a look at Springer's falsified records and promptly reported him to the Better Business Bureau.

Then in the September 14th, 1936 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, they published an article titled Curtis Howe Springer, a quack and his no strings. That article shredded Springer, pointing out that the most thorough search failed to show that Springer had never graduated from any university or college, medical or otherwise.

It took just a week for the legit medical community to loudly proclaim that Curtis Springer was a fake, a fraud and an impersonator. WGN was like, get out of here. But another radio station in Chicago, WCFL, agreed to allow Springer to broadcast twice a day, not as a medical expert, as an evangelist. Springer enthusiastically brought the word of the Lord to the Windy City and managed to sell some of his own medicinal remedies in the process.

He extolled the virtues of rehab, which he promised would ease all digestive irregularities. The AMA tested it and discovered that rehab was just baking soda. Then there was his antediluvian tea that turned out to be a concoction of herbs with laxative properties. Not that it mattered. People bought Springer's message and his medicines.

So many people suffer from such conditions as dizziness, headaches, skin irritations, rheumatism, lumbago, arthritis, neuritis, high and low blood pressure, heartburn, gas on the stomach, belching, indigestion, gastric acidity and sleeplessness. These conditions will take years from your life. So why not go out to your neighborhood drugstore today and get the large family size package and start today drinking one cup of antediluvian tea at mealtime and before retiring?

Springer next took his newfound radio skills to KDKA in Pittsburgh. He opened three more health spas in Pennsylvania, along with one in Maryland and one in Iowa. Again, he wasn't much inclined to stick around and operate these businesses. He also had a casual attitude toward paying taxes, which is how he lost his first health spa, the Haven of Health in Fort Hill, Pennsylvania, to a tax lien.

In fact, Springer had a way of just not paying his bills and he'd be sued more than once by one broadcast company or another for nonpayment. And eventually the feds would come for him, too. Hmm. Grandiosity, an utter disregard for the truth, a blatant indifference to the law. A classic American con man. And he's just getting started.

Springer's wife, Mary, noped herself right out of this circus sometime in the early 1940s. But Springer soon found himself a new partner. Her name was Helen LeGerda. And the couple eventually married and had children. There's no evidence that Springer ever divorced his first wife. And why should he? Why should a man of his greatness be bound to the same petty laws that everyone else has to live by?

In 1944, Springer and his new bride, Helen, found their next venture. It was in the Mojave Desert. The sun ravaged remains of Fort Soda, an old U.S. Army post circa 1860s built on the defunct Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad. The site wasn't for sale. It was on federal land. So the Springers very cleverly filed a 12,800 acre mining claim.

What's that? Well, on May 10th, 1872, President Ulysses Grant signed an act to promote the development of the mining resources of the United States. That act declared... All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States free and open to exploration and purchase. By citizens of the United States and those who have declared their intentions to become such.

And in a nutshell, because you know that federal laws can be insanely complex, the general mining law covered all types of minerals found on federal public lands. Staking a claim, as the Springers had done, meant that any minerals they found belonged to them, even if the land itself did not. So once upon a time, about 540 million years ago in the Paleozoic era, the Mojave Desert was covered by a vast sea.

10,000 years ago, as the last ice age retreated, the Mojave was home to lakes and streams and thick vegetation. Today, there's very little water on the surface of the Mojave, but there are two rivers that flow beneath it. There are lakes, about 100 of those are dry, including the famous Soda Lake and a few dozen wet lakes, the products of pumping from an artificially recharged aquifer.

Without that, those lakes would dry up. The Mojave is a special place. It's home to as many as 200 different species of plants and animals. It's the driest and smallest of all the deserts in North America. Even if it does have a foot in four states, California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, it's super rich in minerals and metals from tungsten and borax to silver, copper, gold and iron.

The Springers stake their claim along the dry Soda Lake. The salt encrusted soil there is as white as snow. To Springer, that parched, salty earth looks like dollar signs as far as the eye could see. Just imagine how restorative the waters would be from a spring in a place as rich in minerals as this. Problem was, there were no natural springs at Soda Lake.

The fake doctor turned radio evangelist knew better than anyone that God helps those who help themselves. What nature had failed to provide, he would provide himself. Well, not exactly himself. Manual labor in the searing desert heat was a job he intended to delegate. The first order of business was naming the place. So Springer went with the word he made up, a word meant to symbolize the last word in health, using the last three letters of the alphabet, ZZYZX.

Springer christened his new town and he pronounced it ZZYZX. We must never ask God to lighten our burden, but rather ask him for strength to bear up under all adversities that we might gain strength and understanding and be better able to serve humanity. By this point, the Springers had relocated to Los Angeles. Springer's plan for getting ZZYZX built involved busing desperate homeless men scooped up from L.A.'s Skid Row out to the desert.

Springer erected 20 tents at ZZYZX and advertised the place as a haven for lost men, a place where they would find a clean bed, nourishing meals, hot showers and medical attention. The catch? They had to work. And also alcohol was forbidden. There were enough hungry, hopeless men in L.A. to fill Springer's bus, even if many of them made the 170-mile trip only to realize that toiling in the desert was harder than they'd expect it and that whole no booze rule was intolerable.

Yet for every man who boarded the bus back to L.A., there was another willing to give Springer's offer a try. Slowly, ZZYZX began to take shape as concrete buildings were erected and rows of California-fanned palm trees were planted. Springer's workers excavated ponds, improved the road and built a spa consisting of nine pools in the shape of a cross.

Springer's vision for the place was ambitious. And before it was over, ZZYZX was also home to a two-story, 60-room hotel called The Castle, a food processing plant, a chapel and a radio studio. Here at ZZYZX Springs, we seek only to help others. Helping others and helping the land help others, which in this case meant fabricating a hot spring in the Mojave Desert.

This required the installation of a diesel boiler to provide all the hot water needed to restore the good health of Springer's future customers. That boiler was a secret, of course. For a final touch, just off the main street, the one they called the Boulevard of Dreams, Springer's workers dug an artificial lake, more like an oversized pond, actually.

He named that Tunanday, a Native American word he said that meant where the waters come together. And now at last, ZZYZX Mineral Springs was open for business. Our buses take you to ZZYZX Mineral Springs and bring you back. While you're there, you'll have the finest of natural foods, sun, mud and mineral baths. Our own daily supplies of the finest of milk and homemade ice cream every day.

But wait, there's more. Weekly side trips to Death Valley and Boulder Dam. See the ghost towns, lost rivers and lofty mountains. You may placer or load mine while a guest at ZZYZX. Ride burlback or shanks mare. Translation, placer mine means basically panning for gold. Burlback means riding a small donkey and shanks mare is old time slang for walking.

Here comes the closer. We make no fixed charge for your stay at ZZYZX. We accept whatever amount God has made possible for you to pay. A definite Christian atmosphere prevails. Somehow on a parched and barren stretch of desert on land he didn't even own, Curtis Springer built a thriving resort destination for health conscious Christians.

He was also very pleased to announce that even some Catholics and Jews had found improved health and serenity by use of his methods and products. Springer and his wife moved from L.A. to ZZYZX, taking up residence in a suite at the hotel on the grounds. Springer used his now syndicated radio show, carried on more than 220 stations in the U.S. and another 100 or so overseas, to sell all of it.

And sell it he did, recording his shows right in his very own radio studio, right there at ZZYZX. The list of products was long. There was dango to treat dandruff, mohair to treat baldness, feet tired from standing all day? Try ZZYZX Foot Crystals. Hungry all the time? Ban away. Feeling sluggish? Try the Hollywood Pep Cocktail.

There was the famous Rehab, of course, and Springer's Anti-Diluvian Tea. And then there was Manna, a vegetarian food supplement that sold like crazy. Though Springer didn't like to think of it that way. Instead, he offered every product for no charge. Just a suggested donation. Manna is a blend of ten different fruits and vegetables to assist nature in building up the system, containing natural vitamins and natural minerals.

Not synthetic vitamins or fortified or impregnated with vitamins, but natural foods. Now this package is put up in a six ounce container, sells for $3 at the stores. But here at ZZYZX, we put it up in a 24 ounce container, or four times as big as the commercial container. Here comes the moment when Springer lets you in on a little secret.

And instead of charging you $12 for it, it costs us, we believe, around $3 to pack it. And now for the price disguised as a contribution. So if you just send a contribution of $3, well, God love you, we'll send you the big 24 ounce package, sealed up in a metal container, enough to last you for about two months. And you're getting four times as much as you would if you paid the retail price.

Springer burned up the highway between ZZYZX and Los Angeles, delivering recordings of his lectures and sermons, visiting newspaper offices to place ads. He'd fetch the supplies he needed to whip up his potions. It was all working out just as he dreamed it would. ZZYZX was a success, maybe too much of a success. In 1969, Springer's old nemesis, the American Medical Association, roared back onto the scene.

Springer was hawking medical cures on the radio and presenting himself as an expert. The AMA could not abide it. They were hellbent on exposing him and shutting him down, this time for good. They launched a campaign calling him the King of Quacks. Complaints about Springer's products had piled up at the Bureau of Food and Drug Inspections, eventually triggering an investigation.

The product most often cited in those complaints? A $25 DIY home hemorrhoid repair kit. Springer vowed that not only would it eradicate your roids, it would prevent any and all hemorrhoids in the future. That's some wishful thinking. But the AMA was even more outraged by Springer's claim that certain of his products could cure cancer.

That kind of false promise was, the AMA stated, absolutely and unequivocally forbidden. So, Curtis Springer was arrested and charged with 65 counts of false advertising and misrepresentation. He'd soon wish that was his biggest problem. Springer was about to learn that he'd also been under scrutiny by the Department of Justice for a long time.

Springer had begun selling lots at Zyzx for the most faithful to build private homes on the grounds. The price, as always, was marketed as a donation. But this was the final straw for the Bureau of Land Management, which had finally gotten wise to the fact that Curtis Springer had laid out an entire town complete with buildings and utility services on land he had no claim to, federal land.

The government was gobsmacked to learn that Springer was running a resort on public land and cheerfully marketing the place on radio and in print. Forget the mining claim he filed in 1944. The only thing Springer had in mind, as far as the feds were concerned, was soccers. The Bureau of Land Management was spitting mad.

They wanted close to $40,000 in back rent for the illegal use of the land. That was just for starters. The investigation into Zyzx revealed that, in some respects, Springer was a man of his word. About a third of the guests paid no fees at all, just as he had offered countless times on the radio. Another third got a hefty senior citizen's discount, half off the usual weekly rate of $50.

Springer plowed the money he made on the lecture circuit back into the resort, and somehow it all balanced out. God will provide. If you play the game fair, I believe the big bosses upstairs will level things out. That's my religion. Hmm. Well, on March 31, 1971, Springer surrendered to sheriff's deputies at the San Bernardino County Courthouse to serve a 60-day sentence for false advertising.

The press was waiting to pounce. Now 74 years old, Springer turned to a photographer for the Sun-Telegram and said, Don't you feel like a criminal taking my picture? Springer was placed on probation. The terms included a complete ban on shipping products and soliciting donations, and he was ordered to dissolve every single one of his Zyzx enterprises.

Two years later, in 1973, Springer was found in violation of his probation and sentenced to six months at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center. Springer gamely testified in his own defense. Your Honor, I sold my business to my wife and have had nothing more to do with it since. No one bought that. In 1974, Springer was found guilty of the charge of squatting on federal land.

He had offered to pay the Bureau of Land Management the back rent they demanded, $34,187, but the government was big mad at this point, and they were like, No, we won't take it now. So Springer was evicted from Zyzx, along with a few hundred of his followers who called the place home. When he was released from prison, Curtis and Helen Springer moved to Las Vegas, a fitting spot for a showman with outsized dreams and balls the size of a stadium.

I mean, come on, the man built an entire town on federal land and got away with it for nearly 30 years. There were many who felt that Springer really hadn't done anything so very wrong. Okay, selling fake medicine is bad, no doubt, but Zyzx? As one reporter put it, it's not like the government was doing or planning to do anything with that land.

At least Springer put it to good use. Over that three decade span, a million people visited Zyzx. Springer gave free rooms to 750,000 people and free meals to 250,000. It was an outrage, some thought, that instead of just letting Springer buy the land outright and keep Zyzx going, the feds dropped the hammer and sent a kindly old man to prison.

Then it was announced that Zyzx would get a second life, this time as a research and field study center for college students. Seven California universities partnered to form a center for the study of the desert ecosystem, and that mission is still going strong. Today, Zyzx is known as the Desert Studies Center, part of the Mojave National Preserve.

Curtis Springer described himself as the last of the old-time medicine men. He died on August 19, 1985 at age 88. Those close to him said that he never got over the bitterness of losing Zyzx. He wasn't a doctor, and despite a long career as an evangelist, he wasn't a minister either. He was a huckster and a salesman, and you have to hand it to him, a visionary.

How many people can cook up a scheme like Zyzx and then make it happen? For 30 years! At the end of his reign in the desert, Zyzx was populated mostly by poor senior citizens who found a safe haven in Springer's town. Many of those desperate Skid Row men that Springer recruited to help build the place stayed. They got sober, they found a purpose, and they were devoted to Springer's vision of what Zyzx could be and ultimately was.

So once more, send your name and address to Curtis Springer, post office box number 2, Baker, California. No money at all for just the free package and the bulletins in a loose-leaf binder. But if you want the manor, enclose $3, $5, or $10 as a contribution, as you care, to Curtis Springer, post office box number 2, Baker, California.

Be listening at this same time seven days a week for more facts about life and how to live it. So until next time tomorrow, we'll say bye-bye, and God bless you all. Next time on True Weird Stuff, if you've never been in New Jersey, you might think Jersey is all about the Jersey Shore and gym tan laundry and traffic and suburbs and pollution and little old ladies giving you the finger in traffic.

But it's not. But there's another side to New Jersey, a rural side. There's more than a million acres in New Jersey where legends live and stories and maybe even a monster. We take you to the Pine Barrens on the next True Weird Stuff. So Sherry, when I was visiting my parents when they lived in Las Vegas, I drove from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and I can remember passing a sign for this place.

And the reason you remember it is it's such an unusual name, you can't help but remember it. And I had no idea what the history was behind this. And this is fascinating. It really is. It's shocking in so many ways because it's not like a long time ago if you think about it. The guy died in the 80s. It's just not that long ago.

And you couldn't do it now. I mean, you could do it for a little while but with surveillance satellites and it's a different world. You can't go build a town on federal land and get away with it for long. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management will let you stay for a certain period of time if you're camping, but you can't be there more than like two or three weeks, something like that.

They do come around and check and then they kick you out. Yeah. My husband and I, we do a lot of off-road camping, boondocking where you're on federal land. And you have to know which land is cool and which isn't, but you're right. You can't set up shop like this. The guy was unique to his time in so many ways and one of the things that I found really fascinating was that he learned at the feet of Evangelist Billy Sunday.

So I knew that that would be an especially fun detail for you, Max, because one of our favorite podcasts is by a guy named Sean Kipe called In the Red Clay and it's the story of the Dixie Mafia and one of the real top bad guys in the Dixie Mafia was named after Billy Sunday. His mama held that baby in her arms and hoped that she was giving birth to a preacher, but it turned out that Billy Sunday Burt became one of the biggest gangsters in American history.

Oh, the irony there. Oh, the irony, yeah. Also, it was interesting. There's a place that I love to go in the mountains that's called Hot Springs. North Carolina. And you were talking about these old-time spas. What would happen is people would have all kinds of things that would happen and because I'm a nerd, I read about the history of this.

So they built a railroad that would come down to there so people from New York and Boston and whatnot could come down to this place for rest and relaxation and there were hot springs and they believed that there were chemicals in the water that actually would cure certain things in your body. So this at one time was a really big business so you can see why people would believe in this and he was able to sell this to people.

What was interesting about this is do you remember when the pandemic first started and TV evangelist Jim Baker was still in good health and he was still on television and he was selling pills that were going to cure COVID? Do you remember that? Yeah, oh, I do remember that. It's very interesting that this huckster mentality with potions and whatnot seems still closely aligned with people who are minister hucksters as well.

Isn't that interesting? You know, you would think that we would have gotten smarter with this. Do you remember a guy who did infomercials? His name is Kevin Trudeau and Kevin Trudeau, you would know his face because he was on television, on infomercials all the time. About 20 years ago, he was selling books about the truth about food and restorative cures and all this sort of stuff.

He did about seven years in prison and he got out, I don't know, maybe about three or four years ago because he was such a huckster. We love this idea that you're going to sell me something that's going to make my life better, you know, through a book or a potion. That's the wildest part of this story for me is that we're doing everything that he did still all the time now, right?

We're mixing mass media with religion to sell people a fantasy, right? Of perfect health with little effort, eternal salvation, all of it. I think that Curtis Springer is like one of the most American characters we've ever profiled on True Weird Stuff. He is boundlessly optimistic. He's endlessly inventive. He's a self-starter.

He's filled with confidence. He believes in himself. He thinks that opportunity is as wide and expansive as the sea and when he gets caught or fails at one thing, he dusts himself off and goes on to the next. He was not even a little bit troubled by what happened when he tried to get hired at WGN and let me just say what a delight it is to stumble across a broadcast entity with some ethics.

It doesn't happen every day. But Sherry, may I point out that the station across town, WCFL, said, I'm sorry, we might have a chance for some ratings here. We really don't care about that. Let's make him a minister. Oh, yeah. I'm telling you, if you could do armpit noises and get listeners, we can get you a job in radio tomorrow.

Well, yeah, we know. So he's such an American character in that way is that you could knock him down and he'd spring right back up and it's so fascinating to me. He's P.T. Barnum. He reminds me of a lot of contemporary politicians in that reality is what he says it is and then it's something different and that's what he says it is.

But where I think Curtis Springer is different from a lot of grifters, and this might just be me being sentimental about how the story ended, I don't think he was devoid of empathy or a heart. I think he genuinely did care about people. And while, yes, he did enrich himself, I'll remind you that he lived, he and his wife, Helen, they lived in that desert community with the people that he recruited.

It's not like that was happening and he was on a yacht somewhere, you follow? Right. He lived there and so many of the people who came through there, especially at the end when the feds evicted the Zizek's community, they were old, poor, devout Christian people who had found a way to live with Curtis Springer. He made it possible for them to live with dignity, to have three meals a day and a good place to sleep and a community to worship with.

I mean, there comes a point where you look at all of that and you have to have some, I don't know, grace for the man. So the question is, was he so calculating that he knew that if he put this as a ruse out there that I'm only doing charitable work to hide what was really going on or did he genuinely have a sense of compassion for them and he was just sort of hapless in all other areas of his life?

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Do you know people in life, details are for the little people. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, car tag. Is the car tag right? Oh, it's for little people. All right, fine. I might get caught. No big deal. So that's the question. Was he so calculating that he knew that some of this would look good and people might look the other way or was he genuinely a good person who just kind of had a hapless nature?

I think that he was a good person who believed his own bullshit with real passion. Yeah. I think that he believed a lot of what he said. He was very fixated from the beginning on the idea that you are what you eat. He's not wrong, okay? Like we can just say that he's not wrong. Right. Now, was he making ridiculous over-the-top grandiose promises?

Yeah, of course he was, you know? But he probably thought, hey, if you're moving your bowels on the regular, you're probably a little healthier than you were before so that anti-deluvian tea isn't all bad, you know? Right. I think that what makes him likable is the very same thing that makes him dangerous and that is he does believe what he's saying and those are the most dangerous people of all.

Don't you think? Yeah. The true believers, they really are and he genuinely, okay, so like he exploited the homeless, addicted men that he scraped off of Skid Row and bussed to Zyzx. He did. He exploited them. They worked their asses off in the Mojave freaking desert which I will remind you, Death Valley, is real hot all the time.

One of the hottest places on Earth, not just in this country but on Earth. Punishing. And they were sleeping in tents and there was no wine, women or song, right? He exploited their labor but he also, and you can't put every single thing into every episode but let me also say that he saw these men as people worthy of redemption and they saw that he saw that and so that's why for every one that was like uh-uh, there were two more that wanted to come and give it a try because for some of these men, it had been a long time since anybody looked at them and saw a man and not a disaster.

You know what I'm saying. Right, I know exactly what you're saying. You've done a lot of work in the community so you know. So these men and a right good handful of them became absolutely fervent true believers. They found God and they found sobriety and they found Curtis Springer and they found Zizek and they gave their everything to that community and the people who lived there.

And so this is not Jonestown. This wasn't some crazy ego cult where the leader in the grip of narcissistic personality disorder enriched himself and then let others come to harm. That's not what happened here. And Sherry, may I say it's refreshing that there apparently is no sex component to this. You know for all of those people that get involved with that, there's always some weirdness there.

Yeah, some weird perversion. The most perverse thing that you can say about Curtis Springer is that he was probably a bigamist. But you know what, as we here at True Weird Stuff know, I think 8 out of 10 people back then might have been bigamists. I will never forget the time we had a phone call into the radio show. This woman got married on some crazy weekend at the beach and we said, were you married now?

Yeah, well did you get divorced? And she went, shhhh. Yeah, it's way common. Some people are just kind of casual about that. Yeah, and I think he was, you know. And he was devoted to and faithful to his, apparently from all accounts, faithful to his second wife. And if you're thinking, yeah, but back then, you know, people didn't talk about blah, blah, blah.

Let me just assure you, yes they did. Because our actor, Don Morgan, my muse, who I try to write whole episodes for any chance I get, who voiced Curtis Springer, also starred in our Unholy City episode as a pervert sex cult leader who dressed it up in religion, but just fleeced people blind and did the most unspeakable things and may have committed murder. Remember?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, I remember. Contemporaries, right? Right about the same time. So yeah, I mean Curtis Springer is a really unique guy. And he, so not only back then could you build a town on federal land in the middle of the Mojave, but you could also just say that you were whatever you said you were. It was very difficult to prove.

And that's why, again, my jaw dropped that WGN ran a background check. I don't think that would happen today. I really don't. Probably wouldn't, but at that time, at the time they probably did that, there was no television. Radio was the gold standard for being able to get information out, other than newspapers, but really.

I just feel like today, three anteaters in a raincoat could walk into a radio station and get hired. One standing on top of the other. I mean, years in the business hasn't made you cynical, has it? Not a little, not even a little bit. Oh, the stars in my eyes. So yeah, I was, I was astonished that GN ran that background check and then that the AMA was so forceful because you, that was not something you saw a lot of back then.

It was just so easy to go from town to town, running whatever scam you wanted to run. And the other thing I want to say, Max, is, and again, this is, you know, maybe this is an indictment of radio or maybe it's just me being bitter. Okay. I'll remind you that Curtis Springer, fake doctor, fake evangelist, selling basically laxatives was syndicated in 220 domestic markets and a hundred more around the world.

I just thought I'd point that out. Yeah. But I don't think he, he wasn't doing a daily show for four hours at a time. Yeah, that's, that's fine. Our show, our radio show would probably be a lot more successful if once an hour I came on and said, are you not going to number two? Drink this tea. I mean, you look, didn't one of the Kardashians make bank on diet tea that was just bogus?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So what, here's what I recommend. You can go to Zyzx right now. It's right off interstate 15. It's not far outside of Las Vegas, but you do want to make sure that you've got plenty of gas in your car and plenty of drinking water just in case you break down because it is the Mojave and it's very hot.

But you may be disappointed by what you find because the last I knew, the state or the National Park Service, I'm not sure who, dropped a chain across the unpaved road to try to discourage people from wandering. I don't know if you would say ruins is the right word, maybe remnants. And because it is still an active research site, that doesn't stop people, by the way.

It wouldn't stop me. I got to tell you, a chain across the road, ain't nothing but an invitation to this girl. I'm looking at a picture of the remaining buildings and it looks like there's about 13 buildings. There's a bunch of solar panels. So I'm guessing somebody must use that as a way to get some power. And I see about four cars.

So there are some people still there doing something, as you had pointed out earlier in the episode. Yeah, they have that whole desert research center. And there are a lot of people, as we mentioned, who thought that the feds made the wrong call. That Springer should have been allowed to pay his back rent and maybe some fines, back taxes, whatever it was you wanted to come up with, and allows Isaacs to stand.

What's your thought about that? Because a whole lot of elderly, low-income people found themselves standing on the side of the road with a suitcase. What's your thought? So you have to ask the question, does the good outweigh the crime? I would say that the government should have just let him go. I mean, what the hell?

It's the Mojave Desert. I guess the thing is they don't want to set a precedent. I think that was it. Yeah. I think that was it, too. Because I felt like you did, like, come on, we got to make, and maybe grant him a temporary lease. Like, look at the youngest old person living at Isaacs. Look at the actuarial tables and go, we're going to grant you a 20-year lease for this price.

And then at the end of 20 years, it would revert. It just felt like a lot of people who were innocent were tossed out on their butts. But now I must point out, now I've got to put on my other hat and say that when you're doing something illegal, you shouldn't do another thing that's illegal. So when you are squatting illegally on federal land in your illegal town that you've built that has, like, a post office and everything, maybe what you shouldn't do is turn around and start selling chunks of that land to private citizens.

What do you think? Because that's where he got caught. Well, there's so much, but it's the desert and there's so much land out there, Sherry. Couldn't they just let this one slide? That, you know, that's, see, that's because we have, we have shifty, not criminal morality, we have shifty, flexible morality. There you go.

That's why I thought, like, maybe we could do a lease, you know, that would at least allow the, maybe evict him, maybe punish him, but allow those poor senior citizens and those redeemed men, you know, to have a place to live for the last time that they've got, which wasn't much in most cases. But yeah, I guess the whole precedent thing is right.

Here's what I'm curious about. He would have gotten caught eventually. I mean, eventually the Federales would have done some surveying in the Mojave or what have you. He would have gotten caught. Now, he didn't get caught until the late 1960s. So he would have gotten caught possibly after he died because his death would have left Zizek's without any leadership or management.

And I think that's the point where attention would have, the people who lived there would have inadvertently called attention to themselves because they didn't know. They didn't know that none of this was legit. What do you think? I still think it's interesting that a radio station in Chicago understood what this guy was all about long before the federal government did.

That's not a thing. That sentence that you just used is not a sentence that's ever been used before and will never be used again. WGN, for those of you that are real people of decency and dignity and not radio people like us, WGN is one of the most legendary radio stations in the United States. We actually have a former co-worker who was the programmer.

Mary Jean Rose was the programmer at WGN for a long time. I went there. I toured their facility. They heard that I was with the Bob and Sherry Show and they treated me with respect. I know you find that shocking. I should come over and rub your head for luck. But they are. Tell the people. It's a big-time legendary radio station with a great reputation.

You know what? It was even back then. Let's learn from Curtis House Springer. Let's learn something right here. Curtis Springer was like, yeah, I think I'm going to be a doctor now and also a preacher. I'm here in Chicago. What's the biggest and the best? WGN, that's where I'm going. When you have that kind of belief in yourself, you can move mountains and turn deserts into towns.

Sure. We will never do that because we just don't simply have enough belief in ourselves. Oh, no. I apologize to my cat if I have to move. I'm really sorry. I know that you're the primary thing in this house. I'm just going to get up for a minute. No, I'm with you. I found a lot. This is a fun one to write because I wrote it for Don.

As soon as I was like, oh, my God, this is a Don Morgan story. So I wrote it for Don because I knew he would have a blast with it. But I sort of could not stay mad at Curtis Springer. And I found myself, I love a bad boy. I found that his version of being a bad boy, I thought overall, he maybe did a little more good than he did harm because the products that he was selling people and he gave away so much because people who heard him on the radio believed that he was a man of God and they really did send what they could.

And sometimes that wasn't anything. Sometimes he just sent them the products for free. I just felt like he wasn't selling poison. He wasn't pretending that chalky water was milk for babies. You follow? Yeah. There's a sinister part of this that's missing that we've had with other kinds of hucksters. Yeah. I mean, he was selling you powdered vegetables and baking soda and herbal laxatives.

I mean, he wasn't selling turpentine and pretending it was cough syrup. We're still selling pills. The red ones are for fruit. The green ones are for vegetables. Don't eat your vegetables. Take these pills. We're still doing that. I see the ads. Oh, my husband fell prey to super beef. Oh, no! And assures me that they're making a real difference.

His son, who is a fitness maniac and the composer of our True Word Stuff theme song, his son is all about this kind of stuff. And this is why we see, even in 2024, how easy it was for Curtis Springer to create his empire. Because when you're selling people that kind of hope, and it's so easy, and it's so affordable, and it's sold to you in a way that is positive and encouraging and loving.

Like, if you notice, Springer didn't really use fear as a tactic, did he? No. There was something so incredibly positive and wholesome. And so at the end of it, when I was trying to weigh out, did he break even? Did he do more harm than good? Did he do more good than harm? I kind of felt like the final score was he did a little more good than he did harm.

And that might just be me being a doormat. Where do you come down? Well, he did enrich himself. I mean, let's be honest about that. He did enrich himself and he helped people along the way. But I suppose there's a lot of these TV preachers that are not the good ones, but the bad ones that have done a lot of bad activity.

I suppose they helped people along the way, too. Well, here's the thing, though. You didn't see Curtis Springer in, like, let's say a blizzard or a hurricane locking the doors of Zyzx and denying people shelter. Joel Osteen. Something in my throat sounds like Joel Osteen. I think that he was a great con man and not much of a criminal.

I think that he could not bring himself to go all the way to the dark side. I think he kept trying to justify and make it okay that he was enriching himself. And he lied like crazy. I mean, he was a terrible liar. He's an absolute liar. Well, no, you're not. That's a big one. Absolute liar. Like, just bullshit out the wazoo.

Is it like sociopath light? Is that what it is? Is it sociopath with a heart of gold? I mean. Yeah, I think. But I think he had a conscience. I don't think he was devoid of a conscience because only a person with a conscience would one after the next after the next. There were hundreds of poor senior citizens living at Zyzx when the feds got them.

And what did they really have to offer him other than their adulation, their worship? They thought he was the godliest of men. And maybe that was payment enough. But when I think about real bad actors, real bad grifters, real bad con men, I see how they enrich themselves. And I watch the machine working to build the empire.

But what I don't see at the other end of it is any evidence of decency. Yeah. It's like the guy that screwed the people out of their mind, Bernie Madoff. There was no decency with that. There was none. And I'm very biased because I knew Tammy Baker, Tammy Faye Baker, and I thought she was a very complicated woman. But her heart was filled with love.

Now her tastes were filled with gaudy and greed could take down any of us. But she was not Marie Antoinette. She was not T.E.K. South Carolina's answer to Marie Antoinette. She just wasn't. Now I have less warm feeling for Jim Baker, who, thank you for reminding us, was hawking bullshit at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Not the only person of that ilk doing so. And there are plenty of so-called religious faith healers today that would be happy to sell you colloidal silver or, I don't know, something to put on your pillowcase. The scam is alive and well and probably always will be until the sun dies. But I just felt like Springer wasn't – this wasn't Unholy City, right?

This wasn't an absolutely foul human being. No, he wasn't a white supremacist like that guy at Unholy City. He wasn't a murderer like that guy at Unholy City. He surrounded himself with acolytes who thought that he hung the moon, but he wasn't Charles Manson or Jim Jones, right? This wasn't the Hale-Bopp comic crew. This isn't Scientology.

These people were there of their own free will and when they couldn't afford to pay the freight, he gave them food and shelter. So if he did go to hell, maybe he went to the less bad hell. He went to the Courtyard by Marriott version of hell, right? But he left some health spas and those people worked there and he kind of left them in the lurch.

Oh, he was great. So see if this sounds like anybody we know. He had a lot of ideas, but the actual work and follow through, that was for somebody else. That's for the little people. To go out there in the Mojave Desert in 110 degrees. Yeah, yeah. What he wanted, he wanted to see the idea come to life and he wanted credit for the idea, but to stick around in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and run a hot spring spa?

No, I don't think so. Not for our boy, who ended up being an internationally famous radio evangelist and host. A guy like that, a guy with those ambitions, ain't going to stick around and run a health spa. That's for others, Max. Little people. The little people. So that wraps up this week's episode of True Weird Stuff.

Thanks for coming back. We had a little brief two-week hiatus. And buddy, when I tell you, we were seeing dead relatives and walking into walls. We needed it. We did. We really did. We do appreciate you, but we needed the break. We really did. We run into, periodically we run into these crazy technical issues. We had one with this episode, where both Max and I thought we had already made this episode.

Then it turned out, about ten minutes before it was scheduled to be released, that we had not. That was just something we thought we did. I said, I called Sherry and I said, I can't find it anywhere. I said, either we didn't do it, or this is the beginning of my mental decline. Listen, this is so bad. Maybe, you know what, maybe we've slipped into an alternate reality again, because I thought for sure we had done it, and conversated about it, and everything, had like a memory, which reminds me, we need to do an episode on the Mandela effect.

Oh yes, that is fascinating. Because, it's very recently that NASA started calling those the Gemini missions. Did you not grow up in a world where that was Gemini, Mercury, Gemini, They were called Gemini, sure. Yeah, and the Berenstain Bears. They call it Gemini. Yeah, it's Gemini, and the Berenstain Bears, and you and I made this episode, but oh, we didn't make this episode, and then we had to make this episode again, even though we both know that we already had.

So, that episode is coming up. Let me tell you, thank you for your patience. Let me give you a taste of what we have in store for you, coming up on True Word Stuff. So, next week, we're going to take you to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. People have lived in the Pine Barrens since like 10,000 BCE, and there are wild legends, and tall tales, and amazing stories in the Pine Barrens.

The American Revolutionary War, the Civil War, oh, people took shelter in the Pine Barrens, and in a place like that, where you can get lost 10 feet from your house, things can happen, and we're going to do a two-part episode. The first part, we're going to take you to the Pine Barrens, and then we're going to bring you to the Pine Barrens today, where the people who live in the Pine Barrens are called the Pineys, and as I speak, there is so much prejudice, and judgment, and misunderstanding of the people who live in the Pine Barrens.

A couple years ago, an elected official in New Jersey had to resign in disgrace for calling the Pine Barrens people defective. That just happened, okay? But the Pine Barrens are also where the great cryptid of the Northeast was born, and I'm talking about the Jersey Devil. So we have that coming up for you, plus the moon landing.

You know a lot of people think that's fake, right? Do you know that's not the first moon hoax that humanity experienced? I did not know that. There is another moon hoax. We're going to take a look at the fake moon landing conspiracy coming up, and we're also going to visit the very first moon hoax, which featured, among other things, unicorns and zebras the size of dogs living on the moon.

It's so good. Oh, it's so good. It's so, so good. And just for funsies, we also have an episode coming up for you about the right stuff. Not the movie, but one of the things that drives me crazy as a space nerd is how indifferent people are to how badass astronauts are, right? So we're all like, Oh my God, I love this season of Vanderpump Rules.

She's my hero. And I'm like, really, have you ever heard of Gordon Cooper? Because I would like to talk to you about heroism. So we're going to do an episode, not just about what makes, I'm going to just choose a handful of astronauts, not just about what makes them so freaking badass, but I'm going to tell you what the astronauts believe and think and saw when they were in space.

Yeah, buddy. Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for joining us for this episode of True Weird Stuff, which we may or may not have already done in some alternate timeline. Who can say? Who can say? Gemini, Berenstain, remember the cornucopia and the fruit of the loom? Because I do. Do you remember how Fruit of the Loom underwear had a cornucopia and now it just has fruit?

Yeah, I know this is this is more Mandela effect stuff, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Everything you think is real is a lie, and the simulation is starting to become unstable. Okay, have an awesome day, and we'll see you. We'll see you on the next episode of True Weird Stuff. And if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, hit the plus button in the top right corner, and now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered.

And we really appreciate it. If you subscribe, rate and review True Weird Stuff. Hit our website, trueweirdstuff.com, for show notes and photos and videos when we have it, and bonus content. Everything true weird is waiting for you at trueweirdstuff.com. And follow True Weird Stuff on Instagram and Twitter. True Weird Stuff is a Now! Media production.

Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia. The show is written and hosted by me, along with my deeply weird director, Max Sweeten. Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser. Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call. Our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr. Original graphics by Kevin Nash.

Original artworks by Olivia Axland. True weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and Zane Nash. Copyright 2024, Now! Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs remembered.