London Bridge was purchased from the Corporation of London April 18,1968, by McCulloch Oil Corporation, a petroleum exploration and production company listed on the American and Pacific Stock Exchanges, and headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif. The company's wholly owned subsidiary, McCulloch Properties, Inc., is the planner and major builder of Lake Havasu City.
Price: $2,460,000, submitted in competitve bidding.
There has been a bridge known as London Bridge across the River Thames for nearly 2,000 years, beginning with wooden crossing believed to have existed in the First Century,A.D. The "falling down" bridge was the span destroyed in the raid by the Viking Chief Olaf the Norwegian. Most durable of the London Bridges was the one started in 1176 and completed after 30 years. It lasted nearly 600 years. Following are facts about the present London Bridge:
Foundation stone laid: June 15,1825
Bridge dedicated: August 1, 1831
Bridge architect: John Rennie
Length of bridge: 1,005 ft.
Width of carriage way: 35ft.
Total estimated weight: 130,000 tons
Arch spans: 130ft., 140ft., 152ft., 140ft., 130ft.,
Granite stonework: quarried in Aberdeen, Devon, Cornwall
London bridge was sold because it could no longer accommodate London's mounting traffic. It was replaced with a new bridge.
Work crews of the Corporation of London dismantled the bridge's granite stonework and stored it on the Surrey Commercial Docks before shipment to this country. Each block is numbered for engineering reference in reconstruction. Rebuilding of the bridge and construction of the waterway it spans was completed in the spring of 1971.
The first shipment of stone, 855 tons, arrived at Long Beach, Calif. on July 4, 1968. Thirty-nine truckloads were required to carry the stones to Lake Havasu City, where they were secured in a seven-acre storage compound.
The foundation stone of the bridge was laid by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Gilbert Inglefield, on September 23, 1968. The stone is located at the old intersection of McCulloch Boulevard and Pasco Del Sol, and is marked by American,British and Arizona flags.
A part of this information was taken from an old news paper here in Havasu.....So now you know.....
