London Bridge (Arizona)

London Bridge, the stone bridge built across the River Thames in the 1830s, now stands in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. By the 1960s the bridge was sinking into the riverbed under the weight of modern traffic, so the City of London put it up for sale. In 1968 it was bought by the American businessman Robert P. McCulloch, taken apart, shipped across the Atlantic and rebuilt in the desert, where it reopened in 1971.^[1] It is the only London landmark that now has a better tan than the people who built it.

Moving it

Each of the outer granite blocks was numbered before being taken down, shipped through the Panama Canal to California and taken by lorry to Arizona. There, the blocks were fixed onto a new reinforced concrete core, so the bridge in Arizona is the old bridge on the outside and a new bridge inside.^[2] It was rebuilt over dry land, and a channel was then dug underneath it and filled with water, giving the bridge something to cross.

This is the only bridge known to have been built first and given its water afterwards.

Tower Bridge

A popular story claims that the buyer thought he was getting Tower Bridge, the much more famous bridge with towers further down the Thames. Both he and the seller always denied this, and there is no evidence for it. The story continues to be told, mostly by people standing on Tower Bridge.

• Built: 1830s, London.
• Sold: 1968.
• Reopened: 1971, Arizona.
• Mistaken for Tower Bridge: no, despite the story.

See also

• River – which it now crosses, eventually
• Great Wall of China – another big stone thing, which stayed put
• Brick – a smaller numbered thing
• Golden Gate Bridge – a bridge that stayed where it was built
• Great Fire of London – another chapter in London's history

References

1. Granite, G. (1971). Every Block Numbered. Desert Press.
2. Thames, T. (2003). “Water Added Later”. Bridge Engineering Review 1968: 1.
3. Tower, T. (1999). No, Not That One. Myth Books.