London Bridge (Lake Havasu City)

Overview of the bridge, 1973

The London Bridge is the partial reconstruction of a London bridge structure of the same name, dismantled in the 1960s, on a reservoir and recreation area in Arizona . The bridge leads in Lake Havasu City over an artificial arm of the Colorado River dammed up to Lake Havasu .

history

The founder of Lake Havasu City, the oil industrialist Robert McCulloch , purchased the cladding material for the elegant arched bridge over the Thames, which originally dates from 1831 . The heavy traffic in the original London building by John Rennie junior had static problems that made a new building necessary. McCulloch had a reinforced concrete bridge built with the same proportions on the reservoir of Lake Havasu , which was then clad with granite stone material acquired in London, numbered and transported by sea and by truck .

The reconstructed London Bridge , completed in 1971, connects an artificial island in the reservoir of the Colorado River with the mainland and acts as a tourist attraction for the recreation area, which was founded in 1964 and mainly appeals to seniors. Part of the project was originally a picturesque “English Village”, a shopping center with a pub, a hedge labyrinth and a historical museum. Some of it is shut down.

Rumors that McCulloch had actually wanted to acquire London's Tower Bridge were confronted by the buyer and the seller Ivan Luckin.

The reconstruction of the bridge formed the background of a television film from 1985 ( Bridge Across Time , also Arizona Ripper or Terror at London Bridge ) with David Hasselhoff and Stepfanie Kramer . The film shows a series of murders in Lake Havasu and relates them to the spirit of Jack the Ripper .

• 

  Original London Bridge, around 1890

• 

  Lake Havasu, 1971

• 

  Lake Havasu, 2003

• 

  Lake Havasu, 2009

and display information about the image

Panorama of the bridge

literature

• London Bridge Comes to America. In: Popular Science . September 1968, ISSN  0161-7370 , pp. 68ff. (English).
• Kevin A. Lynch : What Time is this Place? MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1972, ISBN 0-262-12061-5 , p. 45, (English).
• Erica Rodgers: Alexis and the Arizona Escapade. In: Camp Club Girls. Barbour, Uhrichsville, OH 2010, ISBN 978-1-602-60292-2 (English, fictional representation).
• Frederic B. Tomboy: Lake Havasu City. In: Images of America. Arcadia, Charleston, SC 2005, ISBN 978-0-738-53012-3 (English).

Web links

Commons : London Bridge Lake Havasu  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• London Bridge (Lake Havasu City). In: Structurae
• Megan Edwards: London Bridge: Alive and Well in Arizona . RoadTrip America, February 25, 2007
• Kat Robinson: No Longer Falling Down . Tie Dye Travels, April 22, 2008
• David Scott, Alden P. Armagnac: London Bridge Comes to America . Popular Science , September 1968, pp. 68-71

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See The Guardian, December 14, 2004
2. ^ How London Bridge Was Sold to The States . This Is Local London (Newsquest London, Gannett ), March 27, 2002, accessed February 11, 2016.
3. ↑ The Horror of London Bridge (1985). Bridge Across Time (original title) . Internet Movie Database (IMDb), accessed February 11, 2016.

Coordinates: 34 ° 28  '18.4 " N , 114 ° 20' 50.4"  W.