Skip to main content

1831 London Bridge, Lake Havasu City, AZ



Back in 2012 I visited the London Bridge located in Lake Havasu City just off of Arizona State Route 95.

The 1831 London Bridge is a granite arch design which once was over the River Thames.  Construction on the 1831 London Bridge started in 1824 and took seven years to complete.  By the 1920 the 1831 London Bridge has sunk approximately 4 inches which spurred interest in a replacement span.  The 1831 London Bridge was originally 928 long and 49 wide when it spanned the River Thames.

In 1967 the 1831 London Bridge was closed and sold to Oil Chairman Robert McCulloch and shipped to the Pittsburgh Point in Lake Havasu City.  The 1831 London Bridge was rebuilt from 1968 to 1971 over dry land.  Once the 1831 London Bridge was rebuilt the Bridgewater Canal was dredged underneath which essentially converted Pittsburgh Point into an island.

Today the 1831 London Bridge carries McCulloch Boulevard from the main land of the City to Pittsburgh Point. 




Lake Havasu itself was created when the Parker Dam was completed 1938 which impounded the Colorado River on the California/Arizona State Line.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926.  Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California.  The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant.  However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes.  The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield.  In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range.   ...

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibl...

Old Wards Ferry Road

Old Wards Ferry Road is an approximately 3.6-mile portion of the original alignment of Wards Ferry Road located near the city of Sonora, California.  As currently configured this older alignment begins at modern Wards Ferry Road near Curtis Creek and terminates in Sonora at Sanguinetti Road.  The Olds Wards Ferry Road corridor is largely defined by the single lane 1914-era arch concrete bridge at Curtis Creek. Wards Ferry Road is one of the oldest road corridors in Tuolumne County having been set up as a ferry crossing by Joesph Ward during 1850.  Wards Ferry Road was once the primary connecting highway between the communities of Big Oak Flat and Sonora.  Wards Ferry Road is most well-known from the largely one-lane wide alignment through Murderer's Gulch where it crosses the Tuolumne River via heavily graffitied 1971 Wards Ferry Bridge.  Pictured as the blog cover is the 1897 Wards Ferry Bridge as it was during 1951.  The 1897 Wards Ferry Bridge was built ...