London Bridge (Lake Havasu City, Arizona)

 interesting place, bridge, historic landmark

This is the world famous London Bridge that spanned the River Thames at the time of Charles Dickens. It is the second most popular tourist attraction in Arizona after the Grand Canyon.
In 1963 Robert P. McCulloch Sr. who manufactured chain saws, purchased 26 square miles of desert. He had his friend C.V. Wood, the designer of Disneyland, plan and build Lake Havasu City. He purchased the London Bridge for $2.46 million, then spent $7 million to have it reassembled next to Lake Havasu. Each of the 10,276 blocks was numbered and then reassembled in a three year project. The bridge was dedicated on Oct 10, 1971.

It consists of a concrete frame with stones from the 1831 London Bridge used as cladding. Robert McCulloch purchased the bridge and it was disassembled from its original location in London, where it had been since 1831. Urban legend says that he thought he was purchasing the more notable Tower Bridge.

The bridge was actually constructed over dry land. Once the bridge was completed, the channel was dug under the bridge, making an island out of what had been a peninsula.