The story
Welcome to one of the most unlikely sights in the American West. You are standing on the London Bridge, but take a look around. You won’t find the grey fog of the River Thames or the bustling skyline of the City of London.
Instead, you are surrounded by the red rock, shimmering heat, and deep blue waters of Lake Havasu, Arizona. It feels like a mirage, but every granite block beneath your feet is the real deal. In the 1960s, the City of London had a problem.
This bridge, designed by John Rennie and opened in 1831, was literally sinking into the mud of the Thames. It simply wasn't built to handle the weight of twentieth-century traffic. So, the city put it up for sale.
Enter Robert McCulloch, an American chainsaw magnate and the founder of Lake Havasu City. McCulloch needed a gimmick—something grand to attract tourists and land buyers to this remote corner of the Mojave Desert. In 1968, he placed a winning bid of nearly two and a half million dollars.
The logistics of moving it were staggering. Every single exterior stone was meticulously numbered—over ten thousand of them—to ensure they could be put back together like a giant, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The blocks were dismantled, crated, and shipped through the Panama Canal to Long Beach, California, before being trucked across the desert.
If you look closely at some of the stones as you walk, you might still see the faint, etched numbers used by the workers to keep track of their positions. But McCulloch didn’t just move a bridge; he transformed the land itself. When the stones arrived here, there was no water under this spot.
The bridge was actually reconstructed over a mound of dry earth. Only after it was finished did engineers dredge the Bridgewater Channel underneath it, allowing the lake water to flow through and creating the island you see today. As you walk across, pay attention to the ornate lamp posts.
They have their own legendary history. They were cast from the melted-down bronze cannons captured from Napoleon’s army after the Battle of Waterloo. And if you search the granite for small pockmarks and scars, you aren’t looking at simple wear and tear.
Those are bullet holes from the Blitz; these stones survived Nazi strafing runs during World War II before finding peace in the Arizona sun. There’s a long-standing rumor that McCulloch was a fool who thought he was buying the more ornate Tower Bridge. He always denied it, and looking at the simple majesty of these arches, it’s hard to believe he was disappointed.
Today, this structure stands as a bridge between worlds—a piece of heavy British history anchored in the heart of the desert. Enjoy your walk, and take a moment to touch the stone; it’s traveled more than five thousand miles to meet you here.