How London Bridge crossed an ocean to reach Arizona

The bridge that crossed the Thames

The stonework came from the London Bridge that opened in 1831. Designed by engineer John Rennie and completed under the supervision of his son, also John, that five-arched crossing replaced London’s medieval bridge. King William IV and Queen Adelaide attended its opening. ³

Decades of use brought changes. A 1902 widening provided more space for traffic and added the projecting brackets and balustrades that helped shape its familiar outline. By the 1960s, cracks and growing traffic demands had made another widening impractical. London needed a replacement. ³

Numbered stones, an ocean journey

McCulloch saw an opportunity to bring attention to the community he was developing beside Lake Havasu. His winning bid in April 1968 was $2.46 million. Buying a recognizable landmark gave the young Arizona city a connection to centuries of London history. ¹

The exterior blocks were numbered before dismantling. Their journey took them by ship through the Panama Canal to California, then by truck from Long Beach to Arizona. The numbering preserved the information needed to reassemble the bridge’s historic surface. ^{1 2}

First the bridge, then the channel

Sundt, the Arizona contractor, built a five-span reinforced-concrete structure on dry ground. Crews used a method called soffit fill: earth was piled up beneath the planned bridge, a concrete slab was placed over it, and the bridge was built above that temporary support. The soil could then be excavated from underneath. ²

The imported granite supplied the outer cladding. Most facing blocks were cut down, then fitted into their original relative positions around the new structure. This preserved the historic exterior while giving the crossing a newly built core. Sundt also excavated a mile-long channel across the peninsula, creating the watercourse beneath the completed bridge. ²

A new opening in 1971

Lake Havasu City rededicated London Bridge on October 10, 1971. It became a working crossing over Bridgewater Channel, linking the mainland with an island. Its journey joined nineteenth-century masonry with twentieth-century construction, giving the old facing stones another life in a very different landscape. ^{1 3}