The 19th-century London Bridge that once spanned the River Thames in London, England, was dismantled in 1967 and relocated to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where it still stands.
By 1962 it was decided that the bridge, dating from 1831, could not handle increasing levels of London road traffic and needed replacing. Following a search for potential buyers, it was sold to American entrepreneur Robert P McCulloch, who had all of the bridge’s exterior granite facing stone removed, numbered and shipped to the United States.
McCulloch was developing a new planned community in Arizona on the shore of Lake Havasu, where he had a new concrete bridge built and clad with the original stonework of the old London Bridge. Sir Gilbert Inglefield, Lord Mayor of London, ceremonially laid the foundation stone on September 23rd, 1968, and the reconstruction in Lake Havasu was completed in late 1971. The rededication of the bridge took place on October 10, 1971.
A persistent rumor that MCulloch mistakenly thought he was purchasing London’s more prominent Tower Bridge was never established as true.
