Editing London Bridge (section)

====Sale to Robert McCulloch====
{{main|London Bridge (Lake Havasu City)}}
[[File:London-Bridge-March-1971.jpg|thumb|right|[[John Rennie the Elder|Rennie]]'s New London Bridge during its reconstruction at [[Lake Havasu City, Arizona]], March 1971]]

Common Council of the City of London member Ivan Luckin put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled: "They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing."<ref>{{Cite web|date=27 March 2002|title=How London Bridge was sold to the States|url=https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/169982.how-london-bridge-was-sold-to-the-states/|access-date=1 March 2021|website=Watford Observer|language=en}}</ref> Subsequently, in 1968, Council placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. On 18 April 1968, Rennie's bridge was purchased by the [[Missouri]]an entrepreneur [[Robert P. McCulloch]] of [[McCulloch Oil]] for US$2,460,000. The claim that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressive [[Tower Bridge]] was denied by Luckin in a newspaper interview.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/archive/2002/03/27/Hertfordshire+Archive/5754223.How_London_Bridge_was_sold_to_the_States/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120116071636/http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/archive/2002/03/27/Hertfordshire+Archive/5754223.How_London_Bridge_was_sold_to_the_States/|url-status=dead|archive-date=16 January 2012|title=How London Bridge was sold to the States (From This Is Local London)|date=16 January 2012}}</ref> Before the bridge was taken apart, each granite facing block was marked for later reassembly.[[File:The London Bridge in Lake Havasu City (27698161465).jpg|thumb|Rennie's New London Bridge rebuilt, Lake Havasu City, 2016]] The blocks were taken to [[Merrivale, Devon|Merrivale]] Quarry at [[Princetown]] in [[Devon]], where {{convert|15|to|20|cm|in|round=0.5|abbr=on}} were sliced off the inner faces of many, to facilitate their fixing.<ref>{{cite web|title=London Bridge is still here! – 21 December 1995 – Contract Journal<!-- Bot generated title -->|url=http://www.contractjournal.com/Articles/1995/12/21/27226/london-bridge-is-still-here.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080506144638/http://www.contractjournal.com/Articles/1995/12/21/27226/london-bridge-is-still-here.html|archive-date=6 May 2008}}</ref>  (Stones left behind were sold in an online auction when the quarry was abandoned and flooded in 2003.<ref>{{cite web|title=Merrivale Quarry, Whitchurch, Tavistock District, Devon, England, UK|url=http://www.mindat.org/loc-1521.html|website=www.mindat.org}}</ref>) 10,000 tons of granite blocks were shipped via the [[Panama Canal]] to [[California]], then trucked from [[Long Beach, California|Long Beach]] to [[Arizona State University|Arizona]]. They were used to face a new, purpose-built hollow core steel-reinforced concrete structure, ensuring the bridge would support the weight of modern traffic.<ref name=Elborough2013>
{{cite book
 |last=Elborough |first=Travis
 |year=2013
 |title=London Bridge in America: The tall story of a transatlantic crossing
 |pages=211–212
 |publisher=Random House
 |isbn=978-1448181674
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EW_YhRYKxlcC&pg=PA211
 |access-date=30 July 2014
}}
</ref> The bridge was reconstructed by Sundt Construction at [[Lake Havasu City, Arizona]], and was re-dedicated on 10 October 1971 in a ceremony attended by London's Lord Mayor and celebrities. The bridge carries the McCulloch Boulevard and spans the Bridgewater Channel, an artificial, navigable waterway that leads from the Uptown area of Lake Havasu City.<ref name=Wildfang2005>
{{cite book
 |first=Frederic B. |last=Wildfang
 |year=2005
 |title=Lake Havasu City
 |pages=105–122
 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing
 |place=Chicago, IL
 |isbn=978-0738530123
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_5bdQIrEzQC&pg=PA107
 |access-date=2 May 2013
}}
</ref>