Scenic USA - Arizona London Bridge |
Photos by Ben Prepelka Scenic USA FAA Photography |
Where is London Bridge? Well, it is not where you'd expect it. In fact it's about 5400 miles from London in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
In a long lineage of bridges, the London Bridge, poorly built during the late 1100s, became the subject of the famed nursery rhyme. The third London Bridge, designed by Scotsman, John Rennie, was completed in 1831. Not designed for modern automobile traffic, the bridge began to sink. Anxious to replace the bridge, the Common Council in London began to look for potential buyers. Industrialist and entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch answered the call and placed a winning bid of nearly 2.5 million dollars. Hoping the bridge would bring attention to his freshly established Lake Havasu City community, McCulloch had the bridge blocks mapped, numbered and packed for shipment to the United States. Packing and shipment costs in 1967 added another million dollars to the project. Reconstruction in Arizona took another three years. A rather inventive idea, the Bridgewater Canal was dug under the completed bridge, creating an island between the city and Pittsburgh Point.
Today, the growing community of Lake Havasu City enjoys its exceptional clear sunny skies, the cool inviting waters of Lake Havasu and of course their London Bridge. A tree lined river walk extends along the Bridgewater Canal. Now a mecca for boaters and water recreation, a line of shops, restaurants and resort hotels also line the banks. A walking tour of the bridge is conducted by Lake Havasu Visitor Center personnel, pointing out architecture details of the bridge, area icons of the city and strafing scars left on the bridge from World War II.
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