The Ultimate Attraction During Your Lake Havasu Vacation.
PURCHASED: The London Bridge was purchased on April 18, 1968 for a bid of $2,460,000 from the City of London by Robert P. McCulloch, Sr., founder of Lake Havasu City.
ANTIQUE: To avoid taxation, the Bridge was declared an antique and has been identified as the world’s largest antique by the Guinness Book of Records.
SHIPPED: The 22 million pounds of granite (10,276 pieces) was shipped from London through the Panama Canal to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu, a 10,000 mile journey.
ARCHITECTS: The architect of the Bridge (in 1824) was John Rennie. The architect supervising reconstruction was engineer Robert Beresford, from England. Mr. Beresford used copies of Rennie’s original plans. He soon discovered that the stones taken from the quarries to the London site were marked in the same manner as he had marked them to get them from London to Lake Havasu.
CONSTRUCTION: The five arches were formed by carefully formed sand mounds (like molds). After the stones were in place, the sand was removed and a one-mile channel was dredged to form the “island”. Due to the weight of solid granite, the interior section is concrete and allows a way to provide several different utility services to the “island”.
RECONSTRUCTION: Total reconstruction time was three years, from the laying of the cornerstone (September 1968) to dedication (October 1971).
BRIDGE LENGTH: In Lake Havasu City the Bridge measures 952 feet, while in London it was 1,005 feet long, including on and off ramps.
BRIDGE LIGHTS: The lights on the Bridge were constructed from Napoleon’s cannons, which had been seized and kept in storage. The cannons were then melted down and forged into lamps for the Bridge.
PITTED STONES: During World War II the Germans attempted to blitz London with air attacks. Although the Bridge never sustained heavy damage, it was strafed by machine gun fire.
OWNERSHIP: The London Bridge is owned by the City of Lake Havasu.
Legend of London Bridge
The first bridge, which was built by Romans in 43 AD, was a temporary pontoon bridge. Soon after this, the first London Bridge was built. The next record of a London Bridge is 984 when a woman, who was thought to be a witch, was drowned at London Bridge. In 1014, Olaf pulled the bridge down by tying his ship to piers and rowing off at full speed. In 1176, the first stone bridge was built under the direction of Peter Colechurch. It took 33 years to build. This bridge stood for 600 years. In 1824 the present London Bridge was built under John Rennie. In 1971, London Bridge was reconstructed under the direction of Robert Beresford in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.