I've never really understood the whole "London Bridge" song. Where did it come from? Did London Bridge fall down at some point? Were schoolchildren entertained enough by it to make a cute little nursery lyric?
Suffice it to say, the information does not clear up my confusion at all:
On this day in 1968, the real London Bridge, which had stood since 1831, was sold to an eccentric American businessman - before being rebuilt in the Arizona desert.
Me and you both, buddy:
So it turns out that the 1831 London Bridge is not actually the original structure. The site of the bridge has been a crossing since at least Roman times. The earliest identifiable bridge in the long lineage of "London Bridge" may have been built by Alfred the Great as early as 899.
Obviously it's been replaced a lot of times. You can't really expect a single bridge to last 1100 years. Several structures were put into place over the centuries. They built one in 1209; then King George IV replaced it in 1831.
It was this bridge that eventually got shipped off to Arizona after its 1968 sale:
The 1831 bridge was put up for sale because it was too narrow to cope with increasingly wide modern cars, buses and trucks. ...
... In stepped [American businessman Robert] McCulloch, who was part-way through building his new city next to Lake Havasu [in Arizona].
That's true-blue American gumption for you: "Hey, I'm building a city in the middle of the desert. I think I'll bring over a European bridge to cap it off."
McCulloch paid a few million bucks for the bridge's exterior stones, as well as "the bridge's original ornate lampposts, which had been made from melted-down cannons captured after Britain's victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo."
(How's that for circuitous? A French general gets pantsed by the British and his cannons end up in the American West.)
Well, the bridge was transported to Arizona, and there it was built, and there it remains today. You can cross London Bridge without ever leaving the United States. How's that for modern convenience?
Perhaps the most American thing about this whole incredible feat of engineering:
Amazingly, the bridge was built on dry land, before sand was dug out from underneath to create a mile-long channel that was filled with water.
In Europe, they build bridges over rivers. In America, we build rivers under bridges.
