Yesterday, October 10, marked 55 years since one of the strangest real estate deals in Arizona history was officially finished.
That’s the day London Bridge was rededicated... in Lake Havasu City.
Not a replica. The actual London Bridge.
By the 1960s, the bridge, built in 1831 over the River Thames, had a problem. It was slowly sinking into the river, about three inches every eight years. London decided to replace it, and instead of tearing the old one down, the city put it up for sale.
Enter Robert McCulloch, the chainsaw businessman who founded Lake Havasu City. His new town had plenty of land and sunshine, but not many buyers. When his real estate agent suggested buying London Bridge to attract attention, McCulloch reportedly called it the craziest idea he’d ever heard.
Then he bought it.
A few things you may not know:
- McCulloch’s winning bid was $2,460,000 in April 1968 (over $19 million in today’s dollars).
- Workers took the bridge apart and numbered each of its 10,276 exterior granite blocks before shipping them to Arizona.
- Those blocks were reassembled around a new reinforced concrete core. So it’s London on the outside and Arizona on the inside.
- The bridge was built over dry land. Once it was finished, crews dug a channel underneath it. Lake Havasu built the bridge first and the river second.
- The rebuild took about three years, and the 1971 ceremony drew London’s Lord Mayor and around 25,000 people.
And then there’s the famous rumor that McCulloch thought he was buying Tower Bridge, the fancy one with the towers. It’s a great story. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. Both McCulloch and the man who arranged the sale firmly denied it.
The gamble paid off anyway. Lake Havasu City had only a few thousand residents when the bridge arrived. Today it has more than 50,000, and the bridge still draws visitors from around the world, especially from Britain.
London Bridge spent 140 years over the Thames, then retired to Arizona. Like half of our snowbirds, it just wanted somewhere warm with a view of the water.
Have a great afternoon,
Joy, Jen, Kim, Kathy, Coloradas, Maxfield, Dr Shriner and Dr Ring
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