Bridge Span: The London Bridge spans 930 feet across the Bridgewater Channel in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Major Attraction: Today the London Bridge is a major tourist destination when visiting Lake Havasu City. Shown is a waterside walkway and some of the development along Bridgewater Channel. Restaurants, shops, a marina and tours are just a few of the many attractions that visitors can enjoy. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
The road to London Bridge travels through Arizona! The bridge was constructed in the 1830s to span the River Thames in London, England but by the 1960s, the bridge was declared unsafe for modern traffic and was put up for sale by the city of London 1967.
The winning bid of $2.4 million was made by Robert McCulloch, Sr. He was an American businessman who was developing a new community on the shore of Lake Havasu in Arizona. He thought the bridge would be an attraction to his new town and would help in selling homes and properties.
In 1968, workers began to dismantle and number more than 10,000 granite blocks of the bridge, which were shipped to Long Beach, Calif., and then trucked to Arizona where reconstruction began.
The location of the reconstruction was originally over land later dredged out to create Bridgewater Channel, which flows from Lake Havasu under the bridge today. Reconstruction took three years and the bridge opened in late 1971.
Tour Boat: A tour boat approaches the dock in Bridgewater Channel. Round trip tours are available on a regular schedule from Lake Havasu City across the lake to Havasu Landing Casino in Havasu Lake, Calif. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
English Influence: English influences can be seen around the London Bridge. An English village sits on the east end of the bridge where this English phone booth is located. The lamp posts on the bridge are original and were made from melted-down cannons captured by the British from Napoleon’s Army in 1815. The British flag is flown on the bridge along with the flag of the United States. Also shown is a closer view of the granite blocks, which were numbered and reconstructed exactly as they were on the River Thames. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Sunset: The sunset colors the sky over desert mountains in California as seen from the shore of Bridgewater Channel in Lake Havasu City. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country and he shares his photographs, which appear in the ‘Posts from the Road’ series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.