It’s one of the most bizarre chapters in contemporary Anglo-American history: the dismantling of London Bridge and its rebuilding in the Arizonan desert a few years later. Why on earth did it happen?
The plot thickens when you consider that, while the London Bridges of old were famous for falling down, the one built in 1831 – ‘new’ London Bridge, as it was known – was far sturdier. That, however, didn’t stop its brick-by-brick demolition almost a century and a half later (and its later resurrection for the benefit of holidaying Americans somewhere between Phoenix and LA).
Not content with the London Bridge Wikipedia page, I got in touch with author and social commentator Travis Elborough for his take on what went down, what went down, what went down, Travis Elborough on what went down, my fair lady.
Considering he had just published London Bridge in America: The Tall Story of a Transatlantic Crossing, it was pretty good timing.
I began by asking Travis why what happened, happened.
“London Bridge was put up for sale in 1967 after it was decided that it no longer met the needs of London, which was becoming an increasingly mobile and motorised city,” he told me.
“This was the swinging 60s, with lots of new buildings going up and huge plans for motorways. The bridge also happened to be sinking slowly into the mud of the Thames by about an eighth of an inch a year. So, it was put up for sale.”
Credit: Stockholm Transport Museum
Lake Havasu City: Of course that’s where London Bridge ended up
Step forward American businessmen Robert P. McCulloch and C. V. Wood (the former an oil baron and chainsaw entrepreneur, the latter a theme park designer who had a hand in Disneyland), who were bankrolling the development of Lake Havasu City, Arizona’s latest purpose-built tourist resort. It had the golf courses, the hotels and the climate – but there was a certain something missing.
“They saw an opportunity in buying London Bridge,” Travis explained. “By having this slice of old England in the middle of the desert, they could put their new lakeside resort city on the map.”
So did the Corporation of London, which put the bridge up for sale, envisage it travelling all the way to another continent? Or would they have rather seen a London icon remain in Britain?
“Canada was almost the preferred setting because it’s a Commonwealth country,” Travis said. “But the person whose idea it was to sell London Bridge – a politician by the name of Ivan Luckin – was a bit of an Americanophile.
“He was a big admirer of William Randolph Hearst, who Orson Welles based his Citizen Kane character on, and who hoovered up architectural treasures across Europe before shipping them to his palace in California. Luckin certainly thought America a likely destination.”
A bridge laden with metaphor
And so it came to pass. Transaction complete; cue transatlantic diplomatic wrangling. “A bridge is one of those hilariously heavy-with-metaphor-type structures,” the author continued. “This is a book about cross-river traffic but also transatlantic traffic, permeated with little stories about Anglo-American interconnections and relations.
Credit: British Pathé
“There’s a rather poignant moment where the Americans are slightly unhappy with the pace of the bridge’s transportation. To speed things up they brought in a Swedish firm – one of the forerunners of containerisation – at the time London’s docks were closing down… because of containerisation.”
Did Londoners miss their bridge? Nah, not really
London Bridge may no longer have been suitable for swinging London, but did a section of its forward-thinking population mourn its loss?
“They were surprisingly sanguine,” Travis told me. “The fact the bridge went up for sale fits into a particular element of London history at that time. Counteracting the thrusting modernity were the stirrings of a heritage and preservation movement.
“Just a few years before London Bridge was put up for sale was the classic case of the destruction of the Euston Arch – the original entrance to Euston Station – by the British Transport Commission, which sparked outrage. Shortly after, St Pancras Station was saved.
“The Corporation of London marketed the bridge’s sale as an act of preservation; the alternative being its demolition. Looking through newspapers and commentaries of the time, most people weren’t especially concerned about its departure.
Credit: ProveIt
“There were some snippier comments made when the Americans agreed to buy it – diary entries bemoaning its new location next to a golf course – so I suppose there was a certain English condescension.”
London Bridge’s grand reopening
By 1971, three years after it was bought, the re-erected London Bridge opened in Lake Havasu City (its replacement back in the capital, meanwhile, opened two years later in March 1973). So how did its new surroundings compare with the murky Thames and the backdrop of London’s financial district?
“It was initially erected on dry land and then water diverted through,” Travis explained, “with Lake Havasu City soon becoming home to a pseudo English village with a pub and a mock Trafalgar Square fountain.
“There’s an extraordinary clip on YouTube of a variety show from 1972, a few months after the bridge had been formally reopened, with Tom Jones and The Carpenters performing at Lake Havasu City. It’s sold as a big resort – not very far away is Las Vegas, so it fits in with the pizzazzy idea of an attraction.”