Do you know where the 1831 London Bridge is now? It’s in Arizona in the U.S. The bridge which originally spanned the River Thames in London was dismantled in the 1960s and sent to Arizona where it was reassembled. An American tycoon bought the sinking bridge at an auction to help draw people to a new, developing town in Arizona.
Though the bridge, erected in 1831, was one of London’s most recognizable landmarks, it hadn’t been designed for the weight of automobile traffic, and by the mid-1960s it was sinking into the ground at the rate of an inch a year. London officials needed to replace it. Enter McCulloch, who was looking for a way to raise the visibility of Lake Havasu City, a community he was developing on the edge of a man-made reservoir.
McCulloch paid $2,460,000 for the bridge and $7 million to have its granite blocks disassembled and shipped across the ocean and through the Panama Canal to Long Beach, Calif. They were trucked to Arizona and reassembled over a concrete structure. Initially, the bridge spanned dry land — until a canal was dug under it and flooded.
In 1971, the bridge was dedicated at a ceremony attended by London’s lord mayor, Sir Peter M. Studd, and 25,000 spectators. McCulloch died in 1977, but his gambit paid off. Lake Havasu City has developed into a tourist magnet that attracts 775,000 visitors a year.
Credit : AARP
Picture Credit : Google
