London Bridge

One of the reasons we wanted to stay at Lake Havasu was to see London Bridge. In 1967 the owner of the McCulloch chain saw company bought the London Bridge from the city of London for $2,460,000.00. It cost him another $2.7 million to transport and re-assemble at Lake Havasu. There was no town at that time; he bought the land the city sits on and created his own town. His idea was to create a tourist attraction and then sell land to create a tourist destination. The city is now about 55,000 people.

The bridge consisted of 10,276 granite blocks each of which was shipped from London through the Panama canal to California where they were put on trucks and shipped to Lake Havasu. Most of the blocks were so large only one could be put on a flatbed at a time. The bridge travelled 7000 miles to get here. It is 930 feet long, 49 feet wide and weighs 22 million pounds.

There are miles of walkways up and down the canal. Buildings built along the canal are of English design to keep with the theme of the site. You feel like you're walking along an English street, except for the sunshine and lack of damp fog.

The bridge was actually constructed on dry land with deep footings put into the desert sand. After the bridge was finished, a dredge was brought in and actually created the canal by joining the lake by cutting off a point of land and creating an island.

After a heavy morning of history lessons and walking, we crossed the bridge and stopped for lunch in a Mexican restaurant. This is the view from the patio. A good Cervesa always tastes better after a long walk in the hot sun.

The landscaping around the bridge and buildings was beautiful and made us glad we went there for the day. Although the Mexican food gave us both heartburn, but no gas, thank goodness.