The results of a feasibility study are expected to be announced this summer regarding the construction of a second bridge that would cross the Bridgewater Channel in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
The first bridge is both famous and historic: the former London Bridge that was completed in 1831 and crossed the River Thames in Great Britain.
A project that won international attention in 1968 saw entrepreneur Robert McCulloch purchasing, dismantling, and moving the granite structure block by block for $2.4 million, after work on a new steel and concrete bridge in London was underway.
McCulloch, one of the founders and elders of Lake Havasu City, thought reassembling the bridge and putting it back together in an Arizona location of less than 4,000 residents would be of great publicity value.
And he was right: the inaugural ceremonies for the bridge, once it was operative in Lake Havasu City in the fall of 1971, was covered on network news programs as well as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times, among dozens of other publications.
It is generally regarded to this day as the second most popular tourist attraction in Arizona, next to the Grand Canyon.
In the decades since that 1971 inaugural, the bridge as the only way on and off Lake Havasu’s island, has begun to feel congested, according to city officials.
Earlier this year, Lake Havasu City Mayor Cal Sheehy said a second bridge could prove especially timely for a city that now has around 60,000 residents.
Construction of a new bridge is expected to take up to three years to complete. The project has already secured $35 million in state funds.
By Garry Boulard
