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Field station of California State University
Not to be confused with the Desert Laboratory in Arizona.
Before the center, the site was the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa, run by Curtis Howe Springer from 1944 to 1974, without federal permission. After Springer was ejected, the CSU system negotiated usage of the abandoned buildings of the health spa with the Bureau of Land Management, and in 1976, they signed a five-year cooperative management study for the Desert Studies Consortium to manage 1,280 acres (520 ha) at Soda Springs. The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 established Mojave National Preserve, and established the Desert Studies Center as a partnership between the National Park Service and the CSU system in perpetuity.
The location is especially interesting to biologists because of its perennial wetlands that attract many species of animals and plants in the area, including the threatened and endangered Saratoga Springs pupfish, the Mohave tui chub, and over 200 species of birds.
